Blade: Evolution
by Thug-4-Less
Summary: When Blade's quest to find Whistler leads him to Europe, he never suspected he would find himself embroiled in a war between a second strain of vampires and werewolves as well as a civil war between a Vampire Elder and the Coven he supposedly commanded. He also finds himself beholden to a vampire seductress and a disturbingly cheerful lycan assassin. What's a Daywalker to do?
1. Arrival

If there was one thing that Eric hated more than vampires, it was driving in unfamiliar cities. Ever since he had driven his '68 Charger out of the cargo container in Croatia, it had been one near disaster after another. He had brushed up on his Russian when he had finally gotten a solid lead on Whistler that led, of all places, to Hungary. Unfortunately, while he had a gift for speaking foreign languages, reading was still beyond him. Thankfully, many of the road signs were made in such a way that he could make do, and it was fairly straightforward to take E71 once he got past Karlovac.

Of course, that didn't help him at all once he actually got to Budapest. A local contact had given him a meet point and he'd been two hours late just trying to find the damned place. It had not put him in the best of moods and the safehouse that he'd slept in, a flea-bitten hovel in a closed factory's boiler, had driven his temper close to the breaking point.

The info he had gotten had been good though. His contact had even driven him to an observation post half a mile from the mansion the local vamps had: Ördoghaz. Eric had watched the place for a few hours and could only grin as a large number of the local vampire muscle that were colorfully known as "Death Dealers" drove away in a caravan of modded SUVs. Tonight was obviously his lucky night as security looked especially light.

Eric shook his head at the guards patrolling the grounds. He could tell they were suckheads without even using the thermal viewer in his hi-tech binoculars. No one in the 21st Century would be caught dead in glossy, plastic-looking latex outside of some stupid Hollywood action movie. Vampires biggest advantage over humanity was that the average human was kept in the dark by the string pullers. Eric didn't care how big the string someone pulled was if every vampire walked around as though they were going to a hardcore S&M dungeon.

 _Then again, I always knew there were two strains of vampire in the world._

His normal prey called themselves the Draconis Strain in homage to the vampire they supposedly descended from. There was a lot of bullshit spoken of in the Book of House Erebus, their "Vampiric Bible", about how they were the evolution of the vampire race and superior to the Corvinus Strain. From what Eric had learned, the Corvinus Strain suckheads were immune to silver and garlic. They burned a little faster in the sun but not by much. In fact, the only advantage that the Draconis Strain had was the fact that they could regenerate limbs. Corvinus suckheads could still die from exsanguination and, if his standard hollow-points didn't do the job, there was always EDT and his sword.

Eric opened his trunk and placed his binoculars in their case. He loaded a dozen throwing darts with the blue liquid EDT that made vamps painfully and explosively expire; those went on a bandoleer across his chest. His thigh holster of silver stakes was next. On his opposite hip, he put four spare magazines for his MAC-11, in addition to the four he normally kept on his tac-vest. His two-bladed silver-steel alloy glaive went into its compartment in his jacket; in a pocket beneath that he placed a silver garrote. He checked how his Kevlar vest fit before, with a satisfied grunt, he slammed the trunk shut.

Automatic weapons fire had him sprinting back to the overlook with the inhuman quickness inherent to vampire regardless of strain. It only took him seconds to see that the attack was coming from within since the guards had all been rushing _inside_ the mansion.

Eric jumped in his Charger and was roaring down the street in seconds. Soon, he was passing a car speeding through the open gates that was probably full of fang-faces but his only concern was gaining intel on where Whistler was. He stopped twenty feet down the driveway, hopped out of his car, and raced towards the building. A door to a balcony on the second floor had been left open and Eric stopped just long enough to gather his strength before leaping straight up. His feet easily cleared the low stone railing and, just like that, he was inside the Budapest Coven's primary lair.

 _Too fucking easy,_ Eric thought suspiciously but then he heard terrified screaming coming from the hallway.

The slayer entered the wide hallway and barely caught the screaming vampire as she scrambled around the corner while facing the opposite direction. To Eric's bemusement, she clung to him with desperate strength that, if he had been fully human, probably would have left him with deep tissue bruises if not a fractured humerus.

"Is Viktor with you!?" The suckhead shouted with an accent decidedly English . "It's Marcus! The Elder... he's... he's gone mad! He's killing-"

The rest of her pleas fell on deaf ears as Eric had drawn a stake and placed it near her spine at just the right angle to pierce through to her heart.

"I think you have me mistaken for somebody that gives a fuck," he whispered just before tensing to end her.

That was when the Elder Marcus chose to come around the corner in tattered robes. Normally, that would not have given Eric pause. The fact that Marcus looked like someone had given the vampire a bat's face and wings did. He had never seen a vampire look like this and all the data that centuries of vampire slayers had collected didn't cover such weird shit.

"You... you are not a part of this Coven. You smell..." Marcus sniffed the air and sneered in disgust, "...American. Leave me that one and go back to the New World Coven. Tell them... tell them I'll save them for last."

The blonde vampire whimpered and took shelter behind Eric who, in his shock, let her. Eric stared at the vampire-bat-thing through his Oakley Fours for several seconds before he chuckled.

"Second time in the last thirty seconds I've been mistaken for somebody that gives a fuck about your little power play. I just want some information but, since you just woke up, I'm thinkin' you don't have shit for me. Sucks for you, you ugly-ass muthafucka."

With a roar, Marcus blurred through the fifteen feet separating him and Eric. Despite his speed, even faster than Frost after his La Magra upgrade, Eric was sure he could have gotten a weapon in hand before Marcus got within arms-length. Unfortunately, he hadn't counted on the vamp's wingspan. A pinion darted out and speared him through the left side of his trapezius, below the clavicle, and dangerously close to his subclavian artery. The opposite wing darted in to puncture the right side and his sword was drawn in a flash; resistance was met and then overcome. At least a quarter of the wing came off and Marcus withdrew with a sibilant vocalization of pain. Blade spun with the abrupt motion, drawing his MAC-11 as he went to one knee, and came up firing. He put a nice tight cluster in the center of the Elder's chest. Normally, that would send a vampire straight to Hell in a fiery dance of death.

Marcus roared in pain as the center of his chest was carved open by the hollow-points into a mass of bloody flesh. Eric could only watch in disbelief as the vampire darted into the room he himself had come from. He waited until the sounds of the injured vamp crashing through the balcony doors had faded away before he allowed himself to even look at his wound.

Dark blood oozed at a steady rate from the hole in his torso and he knew that the vein had been hit but not the artery. It wouldn't do him any good at the rate his heart was beating. One side effect of his half-human body was that his heartrate was naturally higher than a human's and even years of meditation had not enabled him to get a resting heartbeat below 90 BPM. Any artery or vein puncture could lead to exsanguination far faster than it did in a human or even a vampire.

 _All this time and I'm going to die in fucking Eastern Europe._

Eric fell onto his back as the world started to go fade away. He could hear his heart struggling to beat in his ears as his vision went darker and darker. The blonde vamp-bitch from before started crying and whispering something but it was no concern to Eric. Oddly enough, he found that he was at peace. Frost was dead and he had made sure his mother was no longer walking the Earth a rabid animal. He only wished that he had been able to rescue the old man.

Blood, that smelled like fresh lilacs of all things, dropped onto his lips before a wrist was placed against his mouth. Without his consent, his body fell back on instinct and he began to gently suckle as a hand stroked his head and a voice pleaded for him to live. The blood tasted of honey and apples, one of his favorite combinations from before The Thirst took over, and he found himself gripping the wrist and hungrily drinking for a moment before he came back to himself. With a growl of warring hunger and disgust, he pushed the arm away and rose to his feet.

The vampire looked up through a fringe of dirty-blonde hair with watery blue eyes. She covered up her bleeding wrist with a soft hiss, exposing a longer-than-average set of fangs, and lowered her head. He idly noted that his sword was still clutched in his right hand but his glasses were missing. Eric cast his dark golden gaze around the hall before he found them nearly in the vamp's lap. When he leaned over to get them, she scrambled back with a whimper. Calmly retrieving his Oakley's, Eric placed them on his face before he return to his silent study.

 _What do I do with a suck-face that saved my life?_

"You're The Daywalker, aren't you?" She whimpered as soon as the words were out of her mouth.

Eric could only grin, showing off his own modest set of fangs. Her reaction was surprising though he didn't let it show on his face. Tears, not the bloody tears so often popularized in fiction, burst from her eyes and she crawled to him on her hands and knees.

"Please, _please_ , don't kill me! I've never killed a human! I swear! Please, I'll do anything! _Anything_! I saved you! I _saved_ you! Even when I suspected, I still did it!" The tears slowed some as she looked up at him. "That has to count for something! _Please_!"

It seemed as though she had run out of words or breath because she just sat there, pathetically clutching his right pants leg in both hands, as he stared down at her. With a resigned sigh, Eric sheathed his sword and hauled her to her feet.

"Stop it. I'm not gonna kill you... yet. I came here for information and, if you're useful, I'll release you."

"You swear it?"

"Excuse me?" Eric asked again in disbelief at the kind of question a kid would ask.

"Do you swear it?"

"You're lucky I don't stake your ass right now," Eric growled but backed off when her face twisted as though she would start crying again. "I'm lookin' for a newly Turned vampire. He was taken in America and kept in stasis while he's been moved around Europe. His name is Whistler. Do you know where he is?"

"America? Amelia was overseeing the New World Coven the last few decades and I didn't hear-"

"The suckheads that took her were Draconis."

 _Interesting_ , Eric thought as that beautiful face twisted into a look of disgust for a brief moment.

"Then I don't know. We don't have much to do with the Draconis Houses besides making sure they don't garner too much attention."

Eric gripped the handle of his sword and asked, "So you're not useful?"

Panic overcame her features again as the blonde held up her hands as though that would save her. "Wait! Viktor has just woken but he would know who to contact! They should return soon!"

"So you expect me to wait here for them to come back with their little army and then sit down for tea and biscuits?" Eric asked incredulously and, amusingly enough, the vampire actually gave him a weak smile. "Yeah, not gonna happen. Take me to where the Death Dealers nest at."

"Nest?"

"Yeah, where they gather and get their shit together. Or do you Corvinus suckheads prefer to roost?"

"We're not animals! We're not l _ycans_!"

"You're all just walking corpses to me. Let's go."

Eric spun her around and gave her a light push. She stumbled and it was then that he noticed that her feet were bare. He also couldn't help notice that, for a white girl from Europe, her ass wasn't too bad. It could have been the way the odd pants and corset combination she wore clung to her frame but Eric was having a hard time keeping his cool with all the blood pumping through his veins. He felt strong and knew that his core temperature was probably spiking to over a hundred degrees. It was always like this after feeding on actual blood. His Serum had a similar effect but it took a toll on him before the positive effects came to the forefront.

 _Focus, you shithead! She's a bloodsucker anyway._

With that mental chastisement, Eric found it easier to focus on his surroundings. They passed a number of shredded bodies, some drained entirely of blood, as well as a few living vamps. One of them, a larger male dressed in the ridiculous Gothic latex, emerged from a room and headed directly to them as though he had questions. Eric reached out and grabbed the blonde around the wrist. He pulled her close, drew his blade, and pointed it so that the tip rested in the approaching suckhead's throat.

"Listen up!" He barked and waited a moment for him to get everyone's undivided attention on the foyer down below. "All you suckheads got lucky tonight! Normally, you'd all be toast by now but I've got other shit to do so I'd advise you all to get the _fuck_ out of sight before I lose what little cool I have left!"

Eric sheathed his sword in a fluid motion that he knew would be almost too quick for most vamps to follow and pushed his informant in front of him. The male vampire hurried up the steps as Eric was led down to the ground floor. She took him through a set of non-descript doors and down a long, narrow hallway that opened into an expansive area he could tell was where the Death Dealers resided. There were barracks down one long hallway to their left but the rest of the space was open and divided between what looked like a workshop, armory, firing range, and sparring mats.

The vampire hunter found it interesting that his prisoner didn't even try to fake him out by leading him to the armory where she could possibly find a gun. Instead, she led him straight to a whiteboard with a number of maps and diagrams laid out on it. Years of planning raids with Whistler let him ascertain the entry points to some sort of underground lair even if he couldn't read the language.

"Viktor led most of our Death Dealers to wipe out the lycan threat. If anyone knows how to find your Whistler, it will be him. Am I free to go now?" She asked quietly.

Eric grunted and shook his head as he tore down several maps, "I can't read this shit. I'm going to need a navigator." When her mouth dropped open in dismay, Eric could only grin. "If you fuck me, it'll be the last thing you ever do."

"You must be really good at it then."

 _Is she flirting with me?_

He had found that, in times of confusion, it was best to let the other person's anxieties go to work for him. Eric watched the vamp's body language shift from quietly flirtatious to increasingly unsettled when he remained silent. There was an air about this one that told him she often used that combination of innocence and sensuality in order to navigate through her parasitic life. In the furtive looks that she kept giving him, Eric knew that she was coming to the realization that it would not help her with him.

"Let's go!" The hunter snapped, grabbed her by the left bicep, and marched her back towards the main entrance.

The foyer was a ghost town when they passed through it and his vampire captive kept her eyes on the arm clamped around her bicep as he walked through the open front doors. He decided to give his prisoner a verbal reminder before she tried something stupid.

"Don't think about running because you can't outrun a bullet and I _will_ shoot out your knees."

"I won't run," she practically whimpered and Eric bit down hard on the growing feeling of sympathy he felt for the vampire.

 _It has to be the blood._

He was a bit rougher than he needed to be when he opened the passenger door of the Charger and pushed her in. Taking a bit longer than necessary to circle around to the driver's side, Eric took in a deep breath of the chilly night air in an effort to settle his emotions. He slid into the driver's seat and took a moment to revel in the feel of the 440 Six Pack roaring to life before he pealed out of the driveway in a cloud of smoke.

"Take me to the closest entrance," Blade told her.

"Erika."

"What?"

"My name's Erika. Not blood-breath or suck-head or whatever other colorful slurs you have for my kind. Would you like me to call you "The Freak"?"

 _So she does have a spine in there._

"What? You think we're on a date? I don't give a fuck what your name is. You're useful to me and I'm not gonna smoke your ass but don't get shit twisted. Now," Eric stopped at an intersection, "What way?"

There was a rustling as Erika checked the map before she said, "Left."

The rest of the ride passed in silence only broken by her nearly whispered directions. Eric could practically smell the fear dripping off her. He had the inexplicable urge to tell her that he wouldn't hurt her as long as she followed his orders; that she was as safe as a bloodsucker could be in close proximity to him.

 _You're getting soft in your old age._

If anything, Eric would have thought that she would have gotten less afraid when they arrived at a building that looked like it used to be a functioning water works of some sort. A pair of SUVs sat parked out front with their headlights still on. Erika's fear seemed to spike and he was shocked to find her hyperventilating.

"Calm your ass down. I don't have any blood to feed you and you'll end up needing to if you keep that up."

"I've never been in a fight before."

Eric raised an eyebrow at that, "Looking like you do, I guess you get your victims to come willingly."

"I told you, I've never killed a human." Erika gave him a quick glance out of the corner of her eye and then smirked as she said, "And they always come for me."

 _Okay. This vamp-bitch is definitely twisted. I know_ that _was a heavy-handed attempt at flirting._

Eric watched her for a moment before he got out of the car with a shake of his head. She probably thought he was just being intimidating but, in reality, he had just been waiting for his semi-erect penis to go completely soft. Her blood was really screwing with his reactions.

"Where are they? I would have thought the Death Dealers would be policing the area by now," She questioned the eerie stillness of the night as he hauled her out of his car.

"Policing?"

"Making it seem like it was rival gangs instead of lycans and Death Dealers. We do try to keep a low profile, dhampir."

"Damp-what?"

"Dhampir. A half-breed. Vampire and human. It's a name. You won't tell me yours, so I had to come up with something."

"You really don't know my name?"

Erika rolled her eyes, "Maybe those Draconis savages all know you but I have much more pressing concerns than worrying about some dhampir."

Eric was about to snap at her when she preempted that by letting out a terrified shriek at the headless body draped over the hood of the SUV closest to the entrance to the warrens that the lycans had taken for a den. The head was nowhere to be found and, when Eric went closer to examine the body, he could tell that something had decapitated the suck-head manually.

"Werewolves are allergic to silver, right?" He asked Erika as he drew his MAC-11 and led the way through the warrens.

"Yes. Not as badly as the Draconis Houses but it will kill them."

They were deep into the warrens, following the signs of battle, when Erika let out another shriek as they came upon a trio of Death Dealers in about twelve different locations down a dismal corridor. She pulled at his hand and led him to where a dark-skinned vamp was staring at the ceiling despite the fact that his stomach was lying in a stagnant pool of water. That probably wouldn't have killed him, Eric had seen vamps recover from worse, but the fact that his heart had been torn from his chest meant that there was no chance at recovery.

Erika sobbed softly for a minute before his patience was up.

"We're on the clock. Unless you want to be stuck down here with all these lycans when the sun comes up."

"What?"

The blonde finally started scanning her surroundings and it was hard to miss the fully transformed werewolf lurking in the shadows of an alcove at the far end of the hall or the one clinging to a pipe two stories above their heads. Eric could hear more, most likely in human form, scurrying behind walls as they decided what to do about him. He could tell that none of those trailing them had any more stomach for a fight. If so, they would have already attacked. Erika did not have his experience to draw on though and, to his surprise, _she_ started clinging to _his_ bicep.

Without a word spoken about her hanging on to him as though he were a life preserver, they made their way into an open space with a shallow pool of water dominating it's middle. There were signs of a fight and a large body floated near the edge of the pool close to a concrete wall with a big hole about a story above the ground. Eric immediately made his way to it but, halfway there, Erika made a strangled noise and threw herself into the nasty water as she rolled the body over.

"Oh, no! No, no, no, no, _no_!"

Eric whistled quietly at the neat, diagonal slice that had bisected the vamp's head. He had done the like many times and had seen humans do it often enough when he was training with his various instructors but it was the rare suck-head that developed that level of talent. The older ones especially tended to simply rely on being so much stronger and faster than their opponents.

"Viktor, I take it?"

Erika didn't reply and just sat in the cold water as she shivered violently. Eric shrugged and quickly searched the so-called Elder's pockets for anything that might lead him to Whistler. Of course, he came up empty and stood with a grunt of disgust.

 _Why can't it ever be fucking easy_?

"Fuck off, Dallas! If you're too chickenshit to go after that Blood bitch that killed Lucian, then you can stay here, licking your balls and letting your flunkies sniff your ass! You're not my Alpha; if I were a man, you'd be my Beta _right fucking now_."

The voice was female, high-pitched in her distress but Eric thought it would probably be husky normally, and had a barely detectable Indian-English accent to it. He ghosted his way up a set of stairs and into what looked like the stereotypical mad scientist's dungeon. The stand-off was occurring in front of a corpse with thick black veins covering every portion of exposed skin. A lone female was surrounded by four men; the smallest of the lot was bare-assed. The woman was dressed in dark grey tac-gear complete with a shoulder-mounted Personal Light Source. A kukri was sheathed on the left side of her waist and a revolver on her right. She also had a semi-auto pistol in a shoulder holster for a left-handed draw. There was no fear in her stance and Eric could see that her eyes, dark as night, were fixed solely on the naked one.

"Look, Lucian's dead. Someone's gonna have to step up and take control. I'm offering you the chance to be my Top Bitch! Forget those fucking Bloods, Rishima! Viktor's dead! Amelia's dead! And that other Elder is cold in the ground and weak as a bloody kitten! The city is ours! The fucking _world_ is ours!"

The lycan woman, Rishima, laughed cruelly and got right in the filthy naked man's face. "I'd rather live in the woods and get fucked by a mangy cur than be _anything_ of yours, Dallas. Now, get the _fuck_ out of my way before I get mad!"

"What the fuck are you gonna do, bitch? Lucian and Raze ain't here to protect you anymore! Now, you're gonna do what I tell you and we'll be easy on you the first few times. Otherwise, I'm gonna make it hurt!"

Dallas reached out and grabbed Rishima's left shoulder. Eric could tell from the way his back tensed up that he was trying to squeeze it painfully.

 _She could be useful if she can really track whoever killed that Elder. They probably know how to find Whistler._

With that thought in mind, Eric was about to make his move when the look of utter disdain on Rishima's face made him hesitate.

"I'm sure this isn't the first time a woman has asked this but... am I supposed to feel something, Dallas?" Dallas growled, far too deeply for a human, and muscles in his back bulged. Now there was a hint of pain on Rishima's face but a foreboding anger came with it. "You've got five seconds to get that hand off me before you lose it."

"Let's just get the bitch on all fours, Dallas!" One of the taller flunkies crowed and the others laughed.

That laughter was cut off when, in a flash of movement, Dallas' arm ended at the elbow. The lycan looked at his spurting stump for a moment and, when he raised his head to Rishima, another flash of movement opened his throat almost to the spine. As the man's convulsing body began to fall, Rishima blurred into motion. She wielded the kukri with a skill that was quite literally supernatural. The tall Lycan with the smart mouth only had a moment to clutch at his guts before his throat was also cut so hard that his head was barely hanging on. Another blade, a stilletto, was driven through the eye of the burly one in the biker jacket. The remaining foolishly ran at her, his skin distorting oddly as though his bones couldn't decide what they wanted to do, and was tripped in mid-run. While airborne, his head was forcibly removed from his body and thus he landed in two pieces.

The entire series of actions had barely lasted a minute.

Eric clapped slowly as he emerged from the shadows, "Impressive."

"And just who the fuck are you?" Rishima challenged roughly as she spun to face him; her hair, bound in a tight ponytail that came down to just below her shoulders, whipped audibly through the air with the speed of the motion.

"Blade."

Rishima began to growl, a bass rumble from deep inside her chest, and drew her revolver in a flash. It was a Colt Python .357. If she had been human, the recoil would have broken her wrist with the one-handed grip she had. The wolf was holding it steady and she wasn't the slightest bit human anymore so he had to play it cool.

"Daywalker," the lycan female hissed between clenched teeth. "You're not a full-Blood and you hunt them too. So why are you here?"

"Same reason you are. I'm hunting some suckheads. I tracked Viktor here but..." He paused to give her a brief smile, "-it looks like he lost his head. Now, I'm going to track down the ones that did it for answers. I heard you wolves are some of the best trackers there are. You help me and you can have them after I get my answers."

"How do I know you won't just kill me when my back is turned?" Her brow furrowed as she pondered his offer.

"You've heard about me. I hunt vampires. I've never killed any of your kind before and I don't plan to unless they get in my way. Now, either pull that trigger or put it away so we can get moving. The sun'll be up soon and I have to get my vamp prisoner back to her hole."

"You have a prisoner?" Rishima asked as she holstered her Python, wiped her kukri with a cloth from a pouch on her tac-vest, and then sheathed her blade.

"Straight from the Coven's HQ. How do you think I found this place? I'm not exactly native."

"I suppose-"

" _No!_ " Erika's shriek had Eric spinning around and diving out of the hole in the wall before the last echoes of her cry had faded.

Flipping through the air, the hunter splashed down in the water and straightened to his full height with a slow roll of his shoulders. Standing in a broad half-circle around Erika were half a dozen Lycans. All of these were clothed in heavy fur coats and dirty leather clothing. All of them were armed with Desert Eagles. Maybe it was a Lycan thing but he was starting to notice a theme with them and their weaponry. They seemed to prefer power over finesse but that was fine with him. That just made them slower and probably bad marksman; it was a good combination- for him. The apparent leader, several inches taller than Eric with a heavy beard, beady blue eyes, and a Neanderthal brow, took a couple of aggressive steps towards him.

"Get the fuck out of here, meat, before you get used like this vamp cunt's going to!" Eric heard a splash behind him but didn't turn. "Yo, this your human pet, Rishima? Tell this fucking monkey to go find a tree to swing in. We're gonna have some fun with this bitch."

"You might not want to talk to him like that, Kristoff."

"Oh, my bad," the thuggish Lycan taunted and held the hand with the Desert Eagle to his mouth. "I'm sorry! Are you _his_ bitch now? Hey, darkie, go fuck your bitch someplace else! We got dibs here!"

Eric smiled, relaxed all his muscles, and then sprinted into furious action. His blade was in his hand, swung, passed through resistance and the small pack's leader's head flew from his shoulders. He drew his MAC-11 and fired on the move, scoring chest shots to the three on his right. Moving into a spin, Eric holstered his MAC-11 and whipped his glaive from its holder. When he halted his spin in a crouch, the glaive was flying through the air to slash the arteries of both Lycans wide open. With smooth surety, Eric rose to his feet and turned to face the direction both Erika and Rishima were watching him from as he caught his glaive behind his back and the body of the first Lycan finally crashed into the water.

The Daywalker smirked at Rishima and gravely intoned, "They were in my way."


	2. R&R

Michael Corvin sat in the dimly lit roadside tavern and sipped at the questionable cup of tepid water as he tried to ignore the persistent stares of the locals.

 _Maybe you shouldn't have picked a seat in the center of the place, dumbass._

The sarcastic self-recrimination didn't ease his anxiety as his thoughts inevitably returned to the absolutely fantastic events of the last forty-eight or so hours. His entire world view had been upended and the only solid thing he could depend on was a centuries-old vampire warrior who was, at turns, painfully shy and then icily commanding. Selene was the kind of brunette, full-mouthed beauty that had always turned his head before the accident that had taken Samantha from him. She wore platform combat boots that boosted her height by nearly half a foot and yet still barely came up to his shoulder. Michael had the feeling that if she took off all her combat gear, the vampiress would present an image of feminine fragility. It was probably the reason she came off so cold and menacing.

Michael had a strong suspicion that she genuinely had no idea how to handle him. From the few conversations they had managed to have between bouts of terrifying fights for survival, he knew that Selene was a fairly big deal in her Coven. She was used to dealing with either superiors in her chain of command or her social inferiors. Her world was fairly cut-and-dry in terms of how she needed to handle social situations. He was most likely the first person in a long, long time that fell outside of those narrow definitions. It was almost cute how she could barely look him in the eye when he acted concerned for her well-being.

 _What was I thinking? "Just make sure you come back". What kind of chauvinistic shit was that, Michael? She's hundreds of years older than you and has probably been in more life-or-death situations than all of the D.I.s back on Parris Island put together. So stupid. I've got to get my shit together if we're going to get out of this alive._

The waitress dropped off a plate full of some kind of cabbage dish with a name he could barely pronounce. It smelled disgusting but his stomach was rumbling so painfully that he took his first bite within seconds. After his first swallow, his stomach immediately ceased its complaints. He nodded to himself and began to eat more vigorously.

 _Maybe I_ don't _have to feed on blood. Maybe being a Hybrid means I can eat normal food. Thank God._

Michael honestly didn't feel that different when his adrenaline wasn't spiking. When it did, he could feel himself Shifting into his Hybrid form, and only then did he feel a supernatural strength and vitality flooding through him. When Selene had opened fire on that dead lycan in the safehouse, the spike had been small enough that just his hands had began to change. He idly wondered what kind of changes had occurred to his internal organs to enable him to do what he did. When he had been fighting Viktor, he had moved incredibly fast. A week ago, he would have said it was impossible for any biped to move so quickly.

Pain exploded in his chest and was released with a throat-wracking cough. He gasped for air with the pain, only to realize that his airway had completely closed off just that fast, and tried to stifle his reactions before too many people noticed him. Then he saw what was being broadcast on the television and adrenaline flooded his system in Biblical fashion. Startlingly, he didn't begin to Shift right away. Instead, heat flooded his body as it began to purge his system of the food he had just eaten. Michael began to explosively vomit as the policemen stood from their chairs and pointed their weapons at him.

" _Don't_!" Michael growled and surprised himself with the deep rumble that emerged from his throat.

One of the policeman shouted at the other and then he ran out of the restaurant. They were undoubtedly calling reinforcements in and Michael couldn't allow that. Still light-headed from poisoning himself, Michael sprinted at the remaining policeman so quickly that the man never got a shot off. He caught the smaller man in a shoulder-tackle, gripped the cop by the hips, stood and pushed ever so slightly. That gentle push propelled the cop into the ceiling and he fell in a shower of debris. He groaned when he hit the ground, so Michael knew that he was alive.

The world passed in a blur as Michael somehow tracked the man's scent to the SUV with police markings that the other policeman had run to. His hands had partially Shifted and Michael punched his left hand through the door. He pulled the door off, hauled the stunned cop from the seat with the opposite hand, and then ripped the vehicle's radio from its mount. He turned back to the cop and received a chest full of automatic rifle fire. Half the magazine was emptied before he instinctively jumped away.

Normally, Michael would have marveled at jumping over ten feet high across a distance of thirty from a standstill. The combined pain in his torso from the bullets and his disastrous attempt at eating normal food prevented such a thing. He ran towards the forest and received a tight grouping of rounds in the back. Many of them passed clean through but some hit bone and those hits threw him off his feet. He looked back and couldn't stop a defiant roar from escaping him as he scrambled to his feet to flee.

His flesh was healing even as he ran but Michael felt weaker and more lightheaded with every stride that he managed. By the time he had gone a quarter mile, he was running far slower than any of the humans chasing him. Every shot that was scored on him just slowed him down more. Finally, he was down to crawling through a shallow stream and up a small embankment. The Hybrid rolled to his back and could only gasp harshly through his mouth to try to conquer the pain coursing through his body. The sounds of his half-dozen pursuers splashing through the stream made him raise his head but he simply lowered it again in resignation.

 _I fucked up._

The sound of multiple rifles being reloaded and bolts cocked precluded the inevitable. His time was up and he could only think of Selene coming back to the safehouse only to find him missing. Even when the screams began, Michael couldn't summon the energy to raise his head. His vision was graying out when his head was pulled into a lap that felt warm compared to the semi-frozen ground.

"Michael," the voice of his guardian angel called to him in that stern tone that turned him on; he was no longer embarrassed to admit it, "Please, you must drink. I can't lose you."

Something that smelled like his favorite chocolate cupcakes from Dixie's Baked Goods back in Long Island was held in front of his face. He raised his mouth and the taste of a caramel-chocolate milkshake exploded on his tongue. He drank the thick stuff hungrily and only after some time did he realize he was clutching a delicate yet powerful forearm with both hands. Michael opened his eyes and gasped as his wounds began to heal.

"Shit,"He groaned as the fierce itching of a healing wound seemed to permeate his entire body. "I'm sorry."

"Can you move?"Selene asked, concern radiating from her even though he could tell she was trying to hide it.

"Yeah, one sec," Michael rolled over and violently coughed up metallic fragments that he assumed were the remnants of bullets that had pierced his lungs. He coughed and spit bloody phlegm for several more moments before he could take a full breath without pain. "Let's go."

Selene helped him to his feet with one hand and helped support him as he hobbled along. She led him towards the cliff face that the safehouse was located at the top of. He looked down at his left knee just as a clump of metal ejected from the side. Several steps later and Michael was walking without a limp. By the time they made it to the bottom of the cliff, he was walking unaided.

"We may have a problem," Selene whispered. While the valley they were in was still comfortably in predawn darkness, the top of the cliff was bathed in soft early morning light. "I don't think I can make it."

A plan came to Michael quickly and he took off the bloody remnants of his shirt. "Here, put this around your head and climb on my back. I'll get you to the safehouse."

Michael tore off his shoes as Selene did as he instructed while staring at him with those big hazel eyes. "Can you make it?"

"I used to go rock-climbing with-" Michael caught himself before he mentioned Samantha and shrugged as he tried to keep the lingering grief at bay, "-well, before I moved here. I feel like I could get us to the top in one jump."

As soon as he said it, Michael realized that it was true. He could feel the strength in his muscles returning and exceeding what he previously thought of as normal. As a man barely into his 30's, he had experienced a subtle decline in muscular strength over the last few years thanks to his lack of strength training and yet he felt stronger than he ever had. With a reassuring smile, Michael turned his back to Selene and went to one knee. As in most things that he thought she had rarely done, Selene was deliciously hesitant when she put her arms around his neck. The faint smell of those cupcakes from Dixie's seemed to waft from the side of his face where Selene's head was. He had the intense urge to bite her and shook his head faintly as he stood.

"What is it?" Selene asked as she wrapped her slender legs around his waist.

"Nothing. Little looser at the waist please?"

Even though the vampiress' legs were definitely not muscular by any sense of the word, she had easily stopped him from being able to take a full breath. He couldn't imagine the damage she was capable of if she got him in a submission maneuver.

 _Or if she orgasmed while she had my neck scissored between them._ The thought caused his penis to shoot to full mast in less than a second. _Focus_!

Michael ignored his throbbing erection as he hopped in place a few times to get her used to the motion, "Ready?"

"Ready."

Michael bent his knees slightly and pushed himself off the ground with all the strength he could muster. Gravity lost all power over him as he cannoned upwards. When he felt his momentum slow, he stopped them by slamming his claws into the rock face. He risked a quick glance at the ground and couldn't believe his eyes. That single leap had carried them nearly thirty feet up the cliff. An elated grin spread across the Hybrid's face as he reveled in his new strength. With a shout of exertion, Michael began scampering up the cliff as fast as he could. Oddly enough, his claws reminded him more of a cat's retractable ones than a wolf's. The way he was effortlessly climbing also seemed far more feline than canine.

The semantics of feline versus canine traits came to a screeching halt as he neared the point where the sun was fully risen over the opposing valley wall. There was still fifty feet or so of sheer face before they would have the opportunity to sprint for the tunnel that led to the safehouse.

"Almost there," He reassured his silent passenger and she nodded against his shoulder in reply.

Michael tensed the muscles in his legs and arms, a quiet rumble built in his chest, and then he pushed upwards with all his might. It felt like he was flying for a moment as they were propelled up the cliff at breakneck speed. Selene let out a grunt of pain when they hit the light. Thankfully, Michael had surpassed his earlier leap and managed to come within a foot of the top of the cliff. A short moment of exertion saw him bound into view right outside the tunnel. He wasted little time in sprinting down the tunnel to minimize the time Selene was exposed.

 _I know she's in pain but even her husky breathing is turning me on._

Once they descended the stairs into the safehouse, Selene slid off his back with a quiet grunt and entered a code into the numeric keypad on a panel just to the left of the stairs. In the bright light of the safehouse, Michael could clearly see where a large patch of hair on the back of Selene's hair had been burned away. The flesh beneath was covered in painful looking boils and third-degree burns.

"Fuck!" Michael exclaimed in shock loudly enough for Selene to turn to him in alarm with one of her sidearms in hand. "Here. Sit."

The concerned trauma specialist gently took her by the shoulders, barely noticing the strange look she gave him, to guide her to the very stool where he had foolishly decided to seek out human company and sustenance. He looked her over and discovered that her thick coat seemed to have protected her body from the sun's deadly light. When he circled behind her, he hissed quietly at the sight of the burns that had even managed to creep up behind her ears.

 _And she barely made a sound,_ he thought in shock.

"Wait here. I'll find something for you."

"There's no need, Michael."

 _Can vampires even go into shock? I know she can be knocked unconscious but does pain have the same effect as it does on a human? Goddamnit, I don't know a fucking thing!_

The lack of knowledge made him want to cry out in frustration but his years in emergency rooms around one of the busiest cities in North America enabled him to focus on finding medical supplies to help his injured savior. Unfortunately, his search came up empty. Nothing in the main lab area was geared towards the treatment of injury and the small bunkroom in the rear of the safehouse was as basic as it got. He did manage to find a linen closet next to a half-bath with plenty of towels. After soaking one in cold water from the sink, he took another to wrap some frozen bloodpacks in. It was definitely not the treatment he would have preferred but it was what he had until he could find someplace to buy proper supplies.

Michael was brought up short when he reentered the main room by the sight of Selene calmly typing away one-handed at a computer terminal. In her other hand, the Death Dealer languidly sipped from a steaming bloodpack. Two more empty packs lay on the counter beside her. The most stunning thing of all was that the back of Selene's head was now covered in a downy dark brown fuzz that seemed to be growing longer with every second that he watched. She swiveled her chair around and sucked the stray droplets of blood off her bottom lip before shrugging at him sheepishly.

"I told you. There's no need," She smiled slightly as he rushed over and circled to stare closely at the back of her head.

 _Holy shit! It grew almost a quarter inch that fast!_

"We can heal minor injuries in minutes when we're well-fed, Michael. That is why I pushed you to feed when we had the chance."

"I know," Michael put the towels on a clear space on a surgical tray stand and sat heavily in a seat down the counter from Selene. "I'm sorry. I fucked up. This is just... it's just crazy. Three days ago, the most stress I had was trying to read the signs on the subway. I've been in maybe two fistfights my whole life and didn't last long enough in the Marines to get into a live firefight. Now look at me! I have to drink fucking _blood_ to stay alive! It's going to take some time to sink in..."

The memory of the taste of her blood brought a flush to Michael that he hoped she failed to notice.

"I am truly sorry, Michael," Selene said as she turned back to the computer. "You did not ask to brought into this world of monsters; of darkness. It was only an accident of birth. If I could, I would give you back your life. You did not deserve this and I understand if, when we find ourselves clear, you never wish to see me again." She turned back to her computer but not before Michael caught the telltale quiver of her bottom lip.

 _Okay, now I feel like a shithead. She basically lost her entire family for you, dumbass. Maybe show a little sympathy._

"Hey, I'm sorry," he boldly reached forward and took one her hands in both of his as he leaned forward. "Of course I want to see you again. It would have been terrible to have never met you. I just need some time to process all this and wrap my brain around it. It's not your fault that I haven't really gotten that chance. And I'll get used to the blood thing, especially if it tastes as good as yours." Michael was unprepared for the slight color that came into Selene's cheeks when she turned her head to look at him in shock. He grinned in embarrassment at unwittingly committing some breach of vampire etiquette. "Am I not supposed to say that?"

Selene cleared her throat and turned back to the computer, "I don't think anyone has detected the activation of this safehouse. No one's tried to get in contact with it to make sure someone hasn't taken temporary refuge here during daylight hours. Wait, what's this?" Selene moved the pointer to the mailbox with a flashing red icon over it. There was message marked 'URGENT' in bold red letters. There was a video file attached and Selene quickly opened it.

A weary and frightened voice began speaking as the screen flashed to a milling group of what Michael could only assume were vampires lounging around a large foyer.

" _This is an priority message for all Covens, outposts, and safehouses. The Elder Marcus has... changed and has betrayed the Coven. He killed Kraven and then began to slaughter his way through the Coven."_

Michael gasped as the image of a man in archaic dress not unlike Viktor's strode into the foyer without a care in the world. The resolution on the camera was good and he could see that the man's face had shifted to more pronounced bat-like features. Every vampire assembled panicked as massive wings unfurled from his back and then he snatched one poor woman off her feet and bit her throat out. That caused a massive stampede that only served to spur the Elder in his slaughter as he dashed around the room with inhuman speed and used everything at his disposal to lay waste to those around him. There was no audio on the film but Michael could tell that he was coming under fire by the way Marcus suddenly began shuddering in place. A trio of figures lined up in a semi-circle in front of the vampire and unloaded their submachineguns on fully automatic. Instead of falling, Marcus lurched forward and the tips of his wings darted through the space between he and his foes. The taloned tips caught both guards through the neck and the last found himself in the Elder's clutches. Conversation must have passed between them because the guard pointed up towards the balcony just before Marcus ripped his head clean off his body after digging one clawed hand into his neck. There was a flash of blonde hair before Marcus flew up to the balcony with several flaps of his wings.

" _Marcus was not the only danger to the Coven that night._ "

The camera switched to a black-and-white one with a view of a long hallway. A black man in a long, dark coat stepped into view and snatched the blonde vampire woman who had been about to run headlong into him. Michael could tell she was scared out of her mind.

"Oh, no, Erika," Selene's voice wavered as she watched the screen and he could see tears beginning to slide down her face.

"What's wrong? He's a Death Dealer, right?" Michael asked as he put a consoling hand on her shoulder.

"No, that is the greatest vampire hunter on Earth and she is the closest person to a friend I have."

The duo watched as Erika took cover behind Blade when Marcus came marching around the corner. Words were exchanged then were followed with mighty blows. Marcus fled with his wing nearly cut in half and the vampire hunter fell to the floor as a pool of blood began to grow beneath him. Erika looked around frantically for a moment, tears running down her face, before an absolutely stubborn scowl overcame her. With decisive movements, she cradled Blade's head in her lap, bit her wrist, and began feeding him blood.

"Shit!" Selene hissed quietly.

Blade didn't seem very grateful when he awoke but he didn't stake Selene's blonde friend. The camera switched again to another color one with a wide view of some kind of training center. Erika directed Blade and, after a few minutes, they departed. Finally, there was a still shot of Erika in the passenger seat of an American muscle car driven by Blade as it sped off the mansion grounds.

" _As you can see, Kraven's adjutant has willfully cooperated with the Daywalker. Elder Viktor went to deal with a den of Lycans with the bulk of our Death Dealers and has yet to return. We presume him to be dead and that event necessitated the last Elder to be awakened. Elder Marcus has been driven insane by whatever alchemical solution has transformed him. The Budapest Coven is without leadership. I, Brutus of Ithaca, have assumed the mantle until the other Covens can render us both assistance and judgment. I await your replies."_

Selene just stared at the screen with her jaw tightly clenched as tears ran down her cheeks. Michael stood and then bent over to envelop her in his arms.

"Hey, it's okay. She saved his life. I'm sure he'll let her go eventually. He just needed her help finding the Death Dealers for whatever reason."

"I don't know what to do," Selene whispered quietly and then stifled a sob. "It was so simple. Train, hunt, kill. That's why she's the only one in the Coven that I'm even remotely friendly with outside of a few Death Dealers. Now she's in danger and Marcus... he's a Hybrid, isn't he?"

"I'm not expert but... yeah, looks like it," Michael spoke into her shoulder and hugged her tighter.

"It must have driven him insane. Why would he try to destroy his own Coven?"

"I don't know about the world you come from but people hold shit in and snap all the time in my world. If he's as old as Viktor, then he might have a lot of resentment built up."

"I still don't know what we're to do now."

Michael raised his head and gently wiped the tears from her eyes. Those sad hazel eyes drew him in and, before he knew it, he was planting a gentle kiss against her full mouth. When he pulled back, he was bemused to see that her eyes were closed and her brow furrowed in a way that was quite cute.

"No one's dared do that to me in over five centuries," Selene whispered.

Michael smiled, "Well, I'm not dead yet, so."

He went in for another kiss and Selene returned it hungrily. After a moment, Michael pulled back and let their foreheads rest together.

"We'll get through it like we've gotten through the last few hours, Selene. Together. You're not getting rid of me that easily."

A small bark of laughter escaped her and Michael's heart throbbed painfully in his chest.

 _I've got to get her to do that more._

"We should shower and sleep though. I have a feeling it's going to be a long night. You want to go first?" He frowned when she shook her head without looking up at him. "Okay. I'll be quick so I don't use up all the hot water."

Selene nodded and still wouldn't look him in the eye. He shrugged and gave her another reassuring hug before getting up to wipe the stink of the day's activities from himself. The shower was decent-sized and surrounded on three sides by clear panels. Michael quickly removed his clothes and tossed them into a bin near the exit before he entered through the sliding glass door. There was one large showerhead overhead and a pair of knobs to control the temperature and pressure. He turned the cold to maximum and stepped under the icy spray immediately.

To his surprise, he didn't begin to shiver. The cold water actually felt refreshingly good against his skin. He idly wondered what his core body temperature would average out at because he had a feeling it would be several degrees above a normal person's. For a time, Michael simply watched the red slurry of dried blood flowing down the central drain as he stood under the spray. So entranced was he by the swirling crimson whirlpool, that he didn't notice Selene until she slid the glass door back to allow herself entry.

Being a red-blooded American Hybrid, Michael couldn't help but look over the vampire's nude body from head to toe. Her breasts were fuller than her tight bodysuit had led him to believe and topped with slightly upturned light brown nipples that were already erect. Her stomach was flat and he could see the outline of a six-pack in the making. Hips that had been accentuated by the corset she wore still had enough of a hollow to fit his hands, he thought, and had to clench his fists to avoid doing just that. A deliciously small tuft of pubic hair did nothing to hide anything from view and, oddly enough, it didn't have the pebbling he commonly associated with shaving or waxing. Her legs, while not overly long, possessed a delicate counterpoint to the strength he knew that she possessed.

The obvious conclusion to his inspection was a throbbing erection that Selene never took her eyes off as she closed the distance between them.

Michael swallowed as her deceitfully fragile, small hands came to rest on his chest and he hoarsely whispered, "I meant that we could shower separately."

"I'm cold, Michael. I've been cold for so long," Selene's hands clenched lightly on his chest as he reached back to turn to the hot water to full and the cold down to barely a quarter turn. Then she looked up at him with those soulful eyes and he knew she was not speaking of the water.

When their lips met, Michael felt as though a furnace had ignited in his center. Inhuman growls escaped both of them as they kissed savagely beneath the spray of increasingly hot water. When he pricked his tongue on one of her fangs, he drew back and looked down at her. She grinned shyly at him, showing off her elongated canines and Michael could only grin back. Selene reached up to wipe a bit of blood from the corner of his mouth only to stick her thumb into her own and playfully suck it off.

"You taste good," She moaned and primal instincts inside of Michael roared to life.

The Hybrid spun the vampire warrior around until her torso was pressed against the shower glass. In his life before, Michael had prided himself on being an attentive lover when it came to foreplay but he just couldn't stop himself. Selene's blank stare as she twisted her head around would have made him rethink what he was doing if not for the fact that she parted her legs and stuck her pert ass even higher into the air.

Michael slid into her with a gasp of pleasure and found that the hollow of her hips _was_ just perfect for his hands. He immediately set a strong, steady rhythm and thrilled in the flexing of the muscles from her upper back down to her delicious bottom. Normally so quiet, Selene seemed to be unable to stop the feminine grunts escaping her as he pounded as much sensuous pleasure from her as he was able. Occasionally, she would look back at him expectantly and he would wonder why. Finally, she reached back and took one of his hands by the wrist to guide it to the back of her head where, he idly noted, her hair had almost grown back to it's original length.

With one hand on the small of her back and the other pulling on her hair, Michael had even less control but Selene didn't seem in a hurry to go anywhere. After long minutes, he could feel himself getting close and pulled hard enough on his lover that she straightened up so that he could get her closer. She let loose a yelp of surprised when he wrapped a hand around her waist and hoisted her up so that most of her front was now pressed lewdly against the glass door.

" _Yes_ ," She hissed as Michael bent his neck and bit her.

That intoxicating taste flooded his mouth as he fucked her in hard, deep strokes while she anchored herself by wrapping either ankle around his calves. When Selene began to whimper and her thighs trembled, Michael knew she was close too. He pulled back slightly to withdraw and set her down before he spun them both so that they were directly under the showerhead. She seemed to read his mind as she leapt up into his arms and immediately bit him on the neck. If he had thought his erection couldn't throb any harder, then she proved him wrong as her drinking from him inflamed every nerve ending in his body. Her legs wrapped around his waist, ankles hooking somewhere below his ass, and she slid down his length without the slightest hesitation.

Their eyes met as they set a slow, languid pace that built to a steady unhurried motion. When the end came, it happened for Selene first. Her mouth opened, fangs fully extended, and she hissed in what Michael thought was an entirely subconscious reaction. The look on her face proved to be too much for him as he surprised himself with the howl that emerged from deep within his chest as he threw his head back. It was the longest and most intense orgasm of his life. If the way Selene bucked and jerked against him, he wouldn't be blamed for thinking it was the same for her.

Then she looked at him with electric blue eyes and he could tell that his own eyes had shifted because the light reflecting off the white tile and her porcelain skin became almost too much to bear but he embraced the pain if it meant he could stare into those eyes for even a few seconds longer. They stayed that way for a long moment as Michael realized that he was still inside of her... and still as hard as he had ever been. The pleased smile on Selene's face never waned as she closed in for another kiss and began to writhe against him.

* * *

The incessant bleating of the cattle was almost enough to distract him from the fiery ball of hate coiled inside of his chest. Marcus tore deeper into his prey's neck, releasing another torrent of hot, thick blood from the heifer. He drank deeply and winced as a lightning bolt of sensation shot through his injured wing. It was strange that he had existed for over a millenia without the ability to fly and yet it enraged him that he would not be able to escape the bounds of gravity thanks to the cursed Death Dealer.

Marcus had been there for the creation of the vast army whose remnants would become the Death Dealers that the various Covens used as thugs and assassins. He had never come across a single one that could best him in single combat. While he had never been the equal of his brothers in combat, Marcus had thought himself well beyond the capabilities of third-generation vampires or lycans. To have a Death Dealer from the New World Coven so grossly injure him was both shocking and infuriating. Even with the new strength that the lycan's blood had granted him, Marcus knew that he was still weak. After the feast and a day's rest, he felt he would be more than capable of killing that Nubian Death Dealer.

Marcus' inhuman features twisted into a snarl as he recalled just how quickly and unflinchingly the Death Dealer had counterattacked.

 _I might need allies if the other Covens send reinforcements. Most of those at the manor are fourth and fifth-generation, if the memories that filth gave me are accurate. It would be interesting to see if they can contract this hybrid virus_. _If not, I can surely find some desperate souls in the cesspool that this city has become. Then I will pay dear Tanis a visit he won't ever forget._

The bleating finally became too much for him and Marcus rose from the steaming corpse of the heifer to hiss slowly at the still living cattle before him.

"Please, no! God, I beg you!" The young woman screamed as she lay across the still warm corpses of both her parents.

The entire family had decided to come out of their house to investigate what was causing their cows to make such a tremendous noise. Marcus had quickly snapped the necks of both parents and then broke the daughter's shins to prevent her from fleeing. He had saved her for dessert because fear only made the blood that much sweeter in his experience.

"Please, go away! I won't tell! I won't tell!" Her pleas turned from throat searing screams to whispers so quiet that Marcus could barely recognize them as speech.

"God? Perhaps I am but not yours."

When she looked at him with vivid blue eyes, he pounced.

* * *

Eric started his Charger and watched as Rishima gracefully slid into the passenger's seat. After she had gathered her backpack and a hefty weapons case, Eric had led the way back to his car. If he had thought the vamp had clung to him before, the grip Erika maintained as they left the lycan den would definitely have crushed a normal man's humerus bone. He bore it all stoically until she scrambled into the backseat of his car.

"We're going to need a place to stay," Eric told his temporary allies. "Take us to your private home."

Erika stared in horror at the darkness of his shades before shaking her head slightly as she answered, "I live in the mansion." Eric lowered his shades enough to glare over the tops of them and was rewarded in seconds when she began to stammer, "F-fine. Turn left when you get back to the street."

Eric drove through the streets at a fast pace with the threat of the rising sun urging him on. They blazed through the twisting streets of Budapest for another twenty minutes and, just as the first rosy hues of sunrise paint the eastern skies, Erika excitedly pointed to a six-story apartment building.

"There! Pull up to the gate! Whatever happens, go with it, or we won't make it."

With that ominous declaration, Eric turned across the opposing lane of traffic and into the entrance to an underground garage guarded by a trio of heavily armed private security. Rishima rolled down the passenger window and cheerfully greeted the guard. He noted with approval that she had a hand between her legs where she had stashed her semi-auto pistol. It was a customized Colt M1911 and he wasn't sure if the woman had loaded armor-piercing rounds into it. The armor panels on his doors had stood up to full-metal jacket rounds from an AK-47 but that had been from fifty feet away.

 _Something tells me that she won't take the chance so she'll probably shoot him in the face if it comes to it._

"Hello, Tibor!" Erika called loudly from the backseat and pushed her head up front past Rishima's headrest.

"Miss Erika," Tibor greeted her as he held a hand to his earpiece. "The building manager says that you were not expected tonight."

"Plans change, dear," Erika practically purred and, without warning, slid her arms down across Rishima's shoulders to undo the top snaps on her tac-vest. Rishima, to her credit, kept her gaze fixed on Tibor as Erika began openly fondling her breasts through the gray T-shirt the Indian lycan wore. "These two are part of new security that Kraven hired but I need to take them inside for a _personal_ interview somewhere private."

 _That can't possibly work._

Tibor chuckled and a subtle blush brought color to his cheeks, "Ah. I see. That won't be a problem, ma'am." The guard waved at his colleague in the kiosk and the heavy steel shutter raised quickly. "Have a nice day, ma'am."

"Thank you so much, Tibor!" Erika exclaimed just before Eric drove over the speed bump and down a short ramp to a relatively small parking lot for so large a building.

The veteran vampire hunter shook his head when he noticed that the vehicles he passed were either luxury sedans or exotic supercars. He would bet that most of the humans that lived in this building had at least six-figure incomes and apartments large enough to reflect that.

"My spot is the one closest to the northern entrance." Now that the excitement was over, Erika sounded as though all of her energy had been expelled by her deception.

The path through the lot was one way and the vampire's name on a stone plinth in front of the parking space made it disgustingly easy to find her parking spot. Eric turned the car off and grinned slightly as Rishima straightened out her vest before she hopped out. His vampire passenger squeezed out of the backseat and walked slowly towards the automated glass doors. Rishima met his eyes over the roof of the car and he could only shrug as he went towards the trunk. He opened it and handed Rishima her backpack and weapons case before he hauled his own large case of weapons out.

Eric shook his head as he noted that Erika had barely made it to the doors and the two caught up to her before she had fully passed through them. He was surprised that the décor of the apartment building was full of bright artificial overhead lighting and gleaming white tile. Their books clicked audibly on the floor as they passed a bank of three elevators before the hallway ended in a single door. Erika remained silent as she listlessly placed her hand on a blank square piece of metal to the left of the heavy-duty steel door. After a few moments, there was an audible series of clicks followed by a dull thud, and the blonde vampire pushed the door open effortlessly.

Rishima followed close behind her and Eric was the last in. As paranoid as ever, he couldn't help but to give one last scan of the stark white hallway behind him. With a rueful shake of his head, the vampire hunter entered his captive's home and let the door shut behind him. Rishima had set her case and backpack down in the short hallway that acted as a foyer of sorts. Eric followed suit as he heard the locks on the door reengage.

The first space he entered was a living room dominated by a massive television against the wall directly opposite the entry hall. A wide U-shaped arrangement of couches sat in front of the television around a black marble coffee table. To their left, Blade could see a long wooden dining room table in front of bay windows whose blinds were wide open. He had to begrudgingly grant his approval to the blonde vamp since the view was completely blocked by a three-story building on one side and a two-story on the other. Most of the light came from tubular fluorescent light fixtures in the ceiling and the occasional lamp set into the corners of the room.

With nerves tuned from years of high-stakes combat, Eric drew his MAC-11 as soon as the drumbeats reverberated through the apartment. Rishima's obsidian eyes disappeared into slits as she grinned like the Cheshire cat and gave in to gut-busting laughter. Eric growled low in his throat before a voice playing through hidden speakers stifled it from sheer embarrassment.

" _One pill makes you larger and one pill makes you small..."_

"Haven't you ever chased the white rabbit, Blade?" Rishima grinned and actually had the balls to _wink_ at him as she followed Erika down the hallway to their right.

Eric sneered and holstered his weapon with possibly more force than was strictly necessary. The haunting voice of Grace Slick emanated from discreet speakers throughout the luxury apartment as they followed Erika. They came to a cross-section and the seemingly sleep-walking vampire pointed to their left.

"Bathroom." Her body swiveled as her arm remained outstretched until she was facing the right hall. "Guest room. Sleep there."

"Is anyone home?" Rishima questioned with a small grin threatening to explode into fullness as she waved a hand in front of the vampire's face.

In response, Erika turned and continued straight down the hallway to the crimson door at the other end. She opened it, walked directly to the massive canopy bed directly opposite the entrance, crawled into its center and flopped down face first onto the bed. Eric entered behind a snickering Rishima and noted that the furniture looked modern as well as expensive. There was a chaise, several comfortable lounge chairs, an armoire and a pair of end tables that probably cost a couple thousand dollars. An open doorway to their left looked like it led to a private bathroom.

"I've never actually seen a Blood sleep before. Are they always so... dead to the world?" Rishima asked with an odd note in her voice.

Eric turned and studied the position Erika had fallen into. Her left leg was bent at almost at a 90-degree angle and that served to elevate her ass just slightly and, once again, he couldn't help but notice how shapely it was. He also noticed that Rishima was right. Erika's breathing had slowed down so much that he had just caught her on an exhale and she showed no signs of inhaling directly after.

"I have no idea. I usually dust 'em when I find them nappin'."

The vampire hunter turned his head towards Rishima as he heard a light tapping coming from her direction. Oddly enough, Cream's _White Room_ started to play as he reached out to stop her from hitting the flat of her kukri against her leg.

"We still need her, Ri."

"I'm not thinking about killing her," Rishima told him as she sheathed her blade. "I fidget when I'm thinking. And Ri? Really? Should I shorten your name to Blah?"

"I think Ri suits you."

The werewolf grinned at him, showing off teeth that were slightly more pointed that normal, before replying with, "And why do you think that is?"

Eric shrugged, "I just do."

"Well, Blade doesn't suit you. I'm thinking you look more like a Jason or a Wang."

Eric raised his eyebrows, "Wang? Really?"

"What? That's a dignified name in certain cultures!" Rishima raised her voice as Eric turned and walked away as he shook his head ever so slightly.

Together, the pair investigated the rest of the spacious apartment. The guest bedroom was half as big as the master and had a half bath with just a toilet, sink, and small walk-in shower inside. Rishima let out a low whistle when they entered the main bathroom and discovered it was more like a small bathhouse. There was an anteroom with a pair of benches and cubicles for towels. The main room was dominated by a lightly steaming pool of water easily large enough to fit a dozen people comfortably. Four other smaller baths were arrayed in a semi-circle around the larger; they varied in temperature from room temperature to a hot tub that was bubbling quite enthusiastically. A pair of alcoves had massage tables and shelves set up with a variety of oils. It was exactly the sort of decadent set-up that Eric expected from vampires.

The dining room was capped at one end by a small reading nook and a open air kitchen on the other. Predictably, Eric found that none of the pots showed signs of use and the refrigerator was full of blood packs. There were several glasses in the dishwasher though and he could only assume she didn't just suck the stuff straight out of the bag. The one thing that they both found hard to believe was that the vampire didn't seem to have a single weapon anywhere in the place. Eventually, they both had to give up the search as fruitless so they could service their own weapons.

Within minutes, both of them had emptied their considerable arsenals on the dining room table. All the time they had been exploring, Erika old ass music had been on, and the hidden system started playing The Doors _Light My Fire_ as Eric took a long, slow look at Rishima's weapons. The three boxes of .357 rounds for her Python were supermags. Her gold-etched, ivory handled 1911 was, he had to admit, a thing of beauty. Rishima also had a pair of chrome finished H&K USP Match's that had been inside one of the slide-out shelves of the thick weapons case. There were six boxes of .45 ACP rounds for the semi-autos. What really caused a raised eyebrow was the weapon that took up the vast majority of her case even broken down. It was an Armalite AR-50 and she had four boxes of .50-caliber incendiary rounds with two that were _armor-piercing_ incendiary. It made his side of the table look downright weak in comparison. He had traveled light in terms of firepower with just his MAC-11, M3 Super 90 shotgun, and HK91 rifle. None of them offered anywhere near the destructive power of the arsenal that Rishima had brought.

"Were you planning on taking out an armored division?" He couldn't himself from smirking as he broke down his MAC for cleaning.

"Oh, are you threatened by my boys?" Rishima grinned as she lovingly caressed the barrel of one of her Match pistols before rapidly disassembling it with inhuman speed. "Have you fought against the Coven suckers yet?"

Eric didn't know just what the Hell he had fought at the mansion so he answered honestly, "Not really."

"I've had an extensive education on both strains of these fucks. Draconis vamps are harder to kill with normal weapons than Coven vamps, true, but both regenerate far more quickly and completely than my people. Unlike you, we can't use silver weapons for obvious reasons. If you want to kill either strain with conventional ammunition, then you need to come heavy. Something about the change makes our tissues somewhat bullet resistant. That's why normal rounds that should pass through barely penetrate our internal organs. These rounds may seem like overkill but, trust me, they are most certainly not."

"Okay but a fifty-cal?"

Rishima laughed as she continue cleaning, "That's for long-range work. I'm sure you know that vamps like to travel in armored cars. This makes those go boom."

"Have you done that many times?"

"Oh, I love this song!" Rishima exclaimed as _All Along The Watchtower_ began to play. "For a vamp-bitch, she's got good taste!" Rishima bobbed her for a moment as she reassembled her Match. "Actually, I only recently finished my training. I haven't actually taken any suckheads out yet."

Eric knew she was lying but let it go. If she wanted to keep the true extent of her abilities hidden, he wouldn't judge her for it. "It seemed to do you good."

Rishima grinned at him and nodded. "Lucian Turned me a long time ago. He said he wanted me to get better training than any lycan before me. I spent many years circling the globe. My last trainer was a former Navy SEAL sniper and he turned me on to the possibilities of the fifty-caliber rifle."

"You're being awfully free with your information. Maybe, once I'm done with the suckheads, I'll start coming after lycans. A man has to do something with his free time."

Rishima's smile became filled with deadly earnestness, "Lucian told me once that only by having strong enemies could a warrior achieve their full potential. If you do come for me one day, I can only hope it will be a worthy battle." Eric nodded as an unwelcome feeling of respect overcame him. He also felt mildly turned on but it was probably still the results of his feeding on Erika. "How many vamps have _you_ dusted?"

"Three thousand, four hundred and eighty-two."

Rishima's smile faded, "How many humans?"

"Nine hundred and thirty Familiars."'

"Familiars? Does that make a difference?"

"The only one that matters," Anything else he was going to say was stopped in its tracks as he got a good look at the spare magazines she had begun loading from a plastic hard case. They were glowing brightly and that was certainly not normal. "What are those?"

"UV rounds. Some kind of irradiated fluid inside that poisons vamps with one solid hit. Supposedly, enough of them will even kill an Elder without a clean hit to the vitals. I only have a couple of boxes of ammo for my pistols so you're out of luck."

"Can I have one?"

"If you're really nice to me, maybe after this is all over," Rishima giggled and winked at him. He merely grunted but only a few moments passed before she broke the silence. "Where are you from?"

"America."

"How old are you?"

"Old enough to drink."

The time passed quickly like this as they serviced their weapons and listened to the vamp's hippie playlist. Eric answered the questions in as few words as possible and, when the conversation inevitably turned to why he was in Europe and who he was searching for, Eric stopped answering all together.

"Should we leave the weapons here? That sucker won't try to blow our heads off?" Rishima asked in a suddenly slurred voice.

"Does she look like a fighter to you?"

"Good point," Rishima chuckled and rose from her seat with a noticeable wobble. "Whoa. Is it getting darker in here? I think I need to lay-"

Rishima turned and barely walked three steps before crashing in a heap. Eric stood and stared for far longer than necessary to see if she would wake up on her own. It was only when she began to snore that he realized the Indian lycan would probably sleep there all day. With a sigh of resignation, he gathered her sheathed kukri and one of her Match's off the table before hefting her over one shoulder in a fireman's carry. A quick trip to the spare bedroom saw him laying the surprisingly heavy woman on the bed. Eric hadn't been under any strain to carry her but she felt like she weighed over two hundred pounds. There was obviously a lot about lycans that was completely unknown to him. He shook his head at his own ignorance as he placed her weapons on the nightstand beside her.

A few minutes later, Eric was settling between the television and the coffee table with his sword in his lap as he sat in lotus position. He closed his eyes behind his sunglasses and drifted off into that state of restful meditation that would allow him to remain aware of his environment.

The hunter did his best to ignore the small part of him that wanted to crawl into bed with either woman.


	3. Confrontations

On most nights, nightmares of the crash and the glassy, fixed stare in Samantha's eyes as he pulled her from the wreck had Michael waking with a scream of denial. For the first time in far too long, his eyes fluttered open from a deep, dreamless sleep to find himself before a pale vision of perfection. Despite his grogginess, he noticed that Selene slept with her hands curled into fists just below her breasts and her mouth slightly parted to reveal the tips of her canines.

 _For someone so old, she sure does sleep like a little kid._ Oddly enough, he found this unexpected revelation humanized her to a degree that nothing else had. _Well, nothing else besides the fact that we had crazy fantastic sex! God, it's never been that good the first time. Is that a vampire thing?_

Thoughts of their heated rendezvous in the shower caused an immediate erection. That quickly died down though as a tremendous hunger pain struck him seconds later. Michael was amazed that Selene hadn't been woken by the rumbling of his stomach. As he got off the cot, solely clothed in a pair of black boxer-briefs, Michael smiled again as he remembered how Selene had shyly ducked her head when he suggested they push a couple of cots together so they could sleep within close proximity. He resisted the urge to smooth back her hair as he moved to the main room and it's refrigerator full of blood packs.

There was a large hot plate on the counter beside the refrigeration unit with a square, deep Pyrex container already placed on it. Michael filled the dish with water from the tap and stacked four packs inside. The hot plate was a newer model and had an electronic temperature gauge. He simply hit the button for what he assumed was the preset for the boiling point of water. While he waited, Michael searched through the half dozen lockers for additional clothing. He found a pair of khaki cargo pants that he thought would fit him, a dark blue Henley thermal shirt, a thick, dark brown leather riding jacket, and a pair of black combat boots. By the time he had finished dressing, the hot plate let off several high-pitched beeps.

Michael tried not to think about what he was doing as he procured a large metal tin that, oddly enough, reminded him of an old-school milkshake tin, and squeezed out the steaming blood. It wasn't quite as thick as he knew even slightly coagulated blood would be fresh out of thawing but it tracked that vampires would have preservation technology that was not readily available to the public. When the smell hit him, it was definitely not what he expected. The scent of his favorite side dish of mashed potatoes, sour cream, and chives wafted up from the tin. With barely a thought in his head, Michael took a hearty swallow of his bloody repast. Heat flooded through him as his stomach wrenched uncomfortably for a single moment before settling back down. There was still a subtle feeling of being unfulfilled but even that was quickly forgotten as he gulped the rest of his meal.

After licking his lips and washing his face clean, Michael poured the remaining bag into a smaller tin and went back to Selene's cot. He grinned widely as he held the steaming liquid under her nose. When her hand darted up to latch onto his wrist with blinding speed, he let out a very unmanly yelp. Selene's features flickered into Puckish amusement before she opened her eyes to blink sleepily at the drink in front of her.

"I, uh, didn't really know how you, uh, liked your blood," He stammered like a lovestruck buffoon. "Or even how much you like when you wake up." Selene actually chuckled slightly and his heart damn near melted at the smile she gifted him with. "What?"

"Drinking room temperature blood is... not something that is an easy thing to do even if it's not coagulated, Michael. Most vampires would have to be starving to even try it," She took the drink from his hands and took a small sip. "This is enough for me. As we age, our requirements for blood lessen unless grievously wounded."

"Is that why I was so hungry?"

Selene's eyebrows raised slightly as she took another sip, "Don't you mean thirsty?"

"No, I mean hungry. Actually, I still feel a little hungry. Kinda like when you've drank a bunch and your stomach's full but you didn't actually eat anything?"

"I don't know what you mean. Vampires usually experience the worst thirst you could possibly imagine when they're in need of blood. Once we drink, all physical cravings for sustenance go away. Maybe it has something to do with your Hybrid nature?"

Michael shrugged, "Maybe but I don't feel like my stomach's going to strangle me to death anymore. We should probably get going though, right?"

The vampiress nodded and sighed, "I suppose so."

As Selene dressed, Michael tidied up the place as best he could. Not once did Selene make fun of his obsessive tendency and, in fact, did her own organizing of the small armory that she looted before they left their temporary sanctuary. She had elected to ditch her very shiny and conspicuous latex bodysuit and armored corset for clothing that was nearly identical to his except for her long, black leather coat and platform boots.

Together, they headed deeper into the mine. Selene had to use a small flashlight to help her navigate the silent, tomb-like tunnels but Michael found that, with the absence of discernible light, his eyes Shifted of their own accord. The meager light thrown out by Selene's flashlight was more than enough to light the tunnel up as though they were in full, if gray-scaled, daylight.

After nearly an hour of walking, Selene finally stopped besides a massive, rusted door that looked like it would fit more in a submarine than in an old mine. There was a hidden panel a few feet to the left of the door and Selene placed her palm on the scanner without fanfare. Massive bolts made distressingly creaky noises as they unlocked.

"Could you get the door?"

"Yeah, sure," Michael agreed and hurried to spin the wheel. Once it locked into place, it took little effort to push the door open. He turned to Selene and bowed at the waist as he gestured for her to proceed. He was rewarded with what might have been a giggle or a restrained burp. After he closed the door and spun the wheel to lock it, he let out a laugh. "I thought that door would be much heavier than that."

Selene smirked at him, "That door weighs over half a ton. We made it that way to stop humans from being able to casually open it."

Michael's eyes bugged out of his head a little, he could tell, and she turned away quickly. "Are you laughing at me?"

"No," Selene answered far too quickly and refused to turn around, "Of course not."

The two had emerged into a short stairwell that led down into a small motor pool. There was a two-door sleek silver sports car and three fancy looking sport bikes waiting to be chosen. Selene snatched a set of keys from a peg board and headed to the car. Michael had never really cared much about cars and had no idea what model it was but it looked expensive.

"Do you know where we're going?" The Hybrid asked as he buckled himself in.

"I know just the man to get answers from," Selene promised as she pulled into a wide tunnel that sloped gently downward.

* * *

Marcus closed his eyes for a moment as he glided through the frosty air towards Ördoghaz. The sensation of flying, of being caught between weightlessness and the strain of fighting against the air itself to remain aloft, was nearly as intoxicating as feeding off of that random family of peasants had been. He only allowed himself a few seconds to bask in the fleeting feeling of freedom before he opened his gaze moments before angling himself to come in for a landing.

Instinctively, he swung his legs forward, arms and wings splayed wide, as he essentially used his new appendages to catch the air to slow his forward momentum. When he was moving slowly enough, Marcus tucked his wings tight to his back and allowed himself to fall the last meter to the ground. The Elder vampire carried the momentum into an imperious march up to the presumably barred main entrance.

With contemptuous ease, Marcus kicked the left door completely off the hinges with an ear-splitting squeal of tearing metal. Screams erupted from inside as he strode through with a wide grin. It seemed as though the remnants of Viktor's Coven had been gathered in the foyer for some sort of announcement. A tall, broad-shouldered vampire, with the kind of square-jaw, blonde hair and natural blue eyes that Nazi recruiters had loved, stood on some sort of raised podium on wheels at the far end of the room. His eyes widened at the sight of Marcus but, instead of scurrying away in terror, he flicked his eyes to the left and right.

Marcus sighed and leaned back with blurring quickness as the vampire holding the pistol, he believed the weapon was called, to his head pulled the trigger. The bullet hit the trembling fool on the other side of him directly in the throat. It was pathetically easy to snatch the weapon from the inexperienced buffoon that had shot his Coven mate.

" _Stop_!" Marcus bellowed as loudly as he could and preened at how quickly his order was followed.

"I'm sorry, Ruben! I'm sorry!"

With a shake of his head, Marcus left the duo by the door as the uninjured one pressed a hand to the gaping hole in the side of his friend's neck.

"I have come for talk on this night; not slaughter," Marcus informed the Coven as he walked to the podium. With merely a raised eyebrow, the man with the short, spiky hair stepped down. Marcus spread his arms wide and tried to offer a reassuring smile but, judging by the panicked looks on many of their faces, he doubted they were at all reassured. "Let me first apologize for my needless and senseless attack on the majority of you last night. Centuries of pent-up rage and a rather abrupt awakening from my hibernation caused me to act rashly. Those who wronged me have all finally reaped the justice they have so long sown. I should not have taken it out on ones so young. Tell me, how many of you are third-generation?"

Marcus was not surprised to find that the majority were considering that the Death Dealers were the group that always had the highest percentage of second-generation vampires. Apparently, Viktor and Amelia had slowed down the amount of Fledglings they had created and left the propagation of the vampire race to their Death Dealers and assorted toadies. That would serve him well now.

"Then I will tell you the true history of this Coven and then make you an offer that I'm hopeful you will accept."

As quickly as he could, the Elder Hybrid summarized the early history of the vampire race and how he had Turned Amelia and Viktor. There were cries of shock at the abrupt reversal of all they had been taught as Fledglings but none dared disturb him. When he was done and a pensive silence filled the room, he grinned bloodthirstily.

"The entire second-generation, these Death Dealers and their sycophants, are my eternal enemy. But you... all of you are my legacy and I would have you come into the future with me and help me in my vengeance. Do not think I offer this lightly. I have been blessed with blood that has made me far stronger than I could imagine and I will gladly bestow this upon any who join me. I know not if any will survive this... Hybrid virus but, if you live, you will be a match for any second-generation. No longer will you be one step above slaves. _You_ will be the start of my army and _together_ will we cast low all those who have treated and used us so poorly."

"And if we say no?" Someone questioned from the back of the crowd of forty-plus.

"Then you will be free to go. I will not stop you but know that I will treat you as the enemy if our paths cross again. Flee to the west or the east. Hide in the frozen north; scurry away to those desert rats in the south. Fly all the way to the New World. Know that I will find you; know that I will _end_ you. Now... who will be the first?"

There was a tense minute where furtive glances were shared before the tall man who had stood at the podium before Marcus arrived walked forward with confident strides.

"I will be first, Elder."

"Why?"

"I should have been a Death Dealer but the appointment is more about politics than ability or age. I have been refused a trial even though I passed an average human lifetime a decade ago. I will be your first."

"What is your name?"

"Brutus, Elder."

"Then, Brutus, fate willing, you will be my first but you will not be a Death Dealer. You will be my Acolyte!" Marcus exclaimed as he lunged forward to Turn his first vampire.

* * *

" _-take another little piece of my heart now, baby!"_

"-disgusting!"

The two voices blended together in a harsh clash as Janis Joplin's throaty vocals were nearly overpowered by Erika's indignant shrieking. Eric opened his eyes slowly behind his glasses and turned his head to a vision that would have caused most men to stare with their mouth's comically agape. His captive and tracker were facing off just in front of the hall leading to the bedrooms and the luxury bath suite.

Erika was wrapped in a towel that was low enough to give just the slight hint of the color of her areolas, an unsurprising light pink, and high enough that even the slightest bend forward would bare the curve of her ass. She looked fairly dry so Eric had to wonder why she had not taken the time to dress. The fierce glare she was burning into the werewolf in front of her gave ample evidence as to the cause of her lapse in concentration.

Rishima, on the other hand, had foregone any clothing and simply stood in unabashed nakedness. Eric appraised her with the eye of a warrior and, to his internal disgruntlement, the loins of a man who had been deprived of female company for far too long. She was as finely muscled as he had expected her to be. To some, the tight musculature under her honey brown skin would have been far too masculine to be attractive but Eric thought it suited her. Her breasts were smaller than Erika's and sat higher on her chest. Thick brown nipples stood erect in the slightly chilly air of the apartment. Between her legs was a neatly trimmed triangle of hair. He knew that shaving cleanly, as seemed to be becoming increasingly popular, was not something that a being with supernatural regeneration could accomplish. Even the smallest cut would cause the hair follicles to "reset", for lack of a better word, to their state at the time a bloodsucker had Turned. Those that were born cursed, like him, could actually shave or wax because their bodies automatically reset to a hairless condition.

The werewolf folded her arms beneath her barely B-cup breasts and smirked, "Why were you in the main bathroom? Don't you have a private one?"

"That's not the point! I saw what you left in the drain, you mutt!" Erika shrieked almost hysterically. "Where did all that hair come from anyway? Did you Shift in the shower?"

"No, I didn't! That hair was from my head, suckface! Some of us have thick, flowing hair instead of straw!"

"Straw!?" Erika's shriek rose high enough to completely drown out even Joplin's powerful voice.

Eric rolled his eyes and silently rose to his feet. He turned and made his way back to the impromptu weapons table. With practiced motions, Eric slammed his weapons case down into the cleared space at one end of the table and began packing up his weaponry. When he was almost finished, a sharp whistle brought his attention back to the two women. It had been a long time since he had been under the expectant glare of a woman and he had never been on the receiving end of two of them at once. Oddly enough, both of their eyebrows were raised in nearly identical fashion.

" Were you planning on showering?" Erika asked, her jaw set stubbornly. Eric growled low in his throat and turned back to prepping for the day. "I'm not going anywhere until you shower and change clothes!"

In smooth, deceptively fast motions, Eric whirled around with his MAC-11 in hand and aimed it squarely at the vamp's heart. Her lower lip trembled slightly and her eyes watered but she remained steadfast in her resolve.

 _How dumb is she? She'll get dusted just because she thinks I stink?_

"You know," Rishima broke the tense silence with a smirk on her face, "-if you were going to threaten her every chance you get, you might not want to try to stop me from killing her while she sleeps. It might send mixed signals."

Eric growled and holstered his sidearm as Erika whipped her head towards Rishima.

"You were going to kill me?!" The vampire actually bared her fangs and hissed.

Rishima lowered her brow and let forth a terrifying rumble from low in her throat that put Eric's best intimidating growl to shame. Erika's mouth shut so fast that it was almost enough to make him laugh.

"He _thought_ I was going to kill you."

"Why did he think that?"

Now Eric did smile at the embarrassed look on Rishima's face, "Yes. Why were you looking at her as though she were a nice, juicy steak, Ri?"

"Both of you can fuck off. Don't we have places to be?" Rishima replied haughtily and sauntered to her smaller case which, he assumed, contained spare clothing.

Eric surreptitiously sniffed himself and had to admit that he did smell fairly ripe. Weeks of living inside a cargo container had not been the best on his hygiene and he had not taken the attend to it with his goal seemingly so close. Erika was still staring at him defiantly and tilting her head in the direction of the bath. With a snarl, Eric marched past her close enough that they nearly brushed shoulders. Several errant strands of hair somehow hit him in the face and brought her scent with it. His erection was immediate and so intense that he thought he might pass out from blood loss before he made it to the shower.

"Use the guest bathroom. I already put out everything you'll need," Erika called to him as he walked down the hallway with what he believed was a thoroughly satisfied tone.

Eric, wanting to get back on the road as quickly as possible, hurried to the guest bathroom. On the toilet was a small pile of toiletries on top of a luxurious bath towel. He closed and locked the door behind him, placed the pile on the marble sinktop, took a piss after his erection dialed back to a manageable level, quickly removed his clothes, placed his MAC-11 on a shelf opposite the showerhead, and finally stepped into the shower. There was no hesitation as he turned the cold water to full blast and stepped beneath the spray.

 _What am I doing? What the fuck is wrong with you, Eric?_ He tried to turn his thoughts to all the horrific things Erika had probably done in her immortal life but all he could concentrate on was how sexy she had looked wrapped in that bath towel. Seductive was a good word to describe the aura the vampiress seemed to project at will. _She must have someone she fucks on a regular basis. Maybe she's expecting him to come to her rescue tonight?_ Eric dismissed that idea quickly. If she had someone like that, they would have been at the Coven. Either they were dead or didn't care enough to try to come get her. _How they didn't just blow that shit off and spend the night fucking her- stop it, you muthafucka!_

Of course, his mind immediately conjured a vision of Rishima's tight, firm ass as she sauntered away from him.

Eric finished his _very_ cold shower as quickly as he could after that. Even the odd experience of using one of those coarse loofah's and scented bodywash didn't slow him much. Six minutes later, even his hair had been given a thorough scrubbing, and the hunter had to admit that it was definitely a much needed improvement. A quick look in the mirror after brushing his teeth caused another delay when he realized he had a scruffy beard filling in. There was little he could do about the fading lines of his haircut until he found a decent barber but it was the matter of another couple minutes to clean up his facial hair. He left his mustache a tad thicker than normal just for variety.

When he emerged back into the living room, he came very close to having an embarrassing obvious tent in the towel he had bunched around his waist. Erika and Rishima were nearly side-by-side as they leaned over almost 90-degrees at the edge of the table while Rishima excitedly talked about her sniper rifle. Rishima was wearing those same cargo pants from last night but now he could appreciate how tight they actually were. The damn things looked they must have been painted on. Erika really took the cake though as she was wearing a white dress so short that he could just barely see the hint of the light pink underwear she was wearing. Her four-inch stiletto heels made her calves really stand out but they would be terrible to run in.

"That's not exactly tactical," Eric said as he walked to his still open weapons case and removed a smaller case from inside. Neatly folded inside were several spare changes of underwear, T-shirts, and socks.

Rishima chuckled and nudged Erika with her shoulder, "I told you he would say that."

Erika rolled her eyes and the ghost of a smile played at her lips, "I'll tell him what I told you. I'm not a fucking Death Dealer."

Eric could feel their eyes on him as he pulled his black boxer-briefs on under the towel. With a resigned huff, the vampire left the room to find more suitable clothing.

"Between you and me," Rishima lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, "I think she was hoping to see the entire... _package_."

Eric did not let the fact that the sudden flirtatious deepening of the lycan's voice had sent a not unpleasant chill down his spine. Instead, he raised an eyebrow behind his Oakley's and shook his head slightly.

"Do you know where we're goin'?"

Rishima actually pouted for a millisecond before her professional mask fell into place, "Erika knows where Tanis lives. He used to be the historian for the Bloods before Viktor exiled him for telling secrets the self-righteous fuck didn't want anyone to know. He's been on Lucian's payroll for about forty years now but only a handful of people in his inner circle know his location. I'm not one of them. Lucian says it's because Tanis is scared of me but he let fucking _Raze_ go with him."

"Raze?"

"About two meters tall, maybe a hundred and forty kilos. One of the most intimidating voices you'll ever hear. He makes you look like a prep schoolboy even if you could probably kill him before he got within ten paces."

"A hundred and forty? That's almost three hundred pounds, isn't it? He a fat ass?"

Rishima laughed, "This isn't some fantasy bullshit story about werewolves, Blade. We lose some weight during a Shift but if we weigh a hundred kilos when Bestial then we weigh about that when in human form. We're just more... compact... denser, I guess, in human form. The biology of lycans was not my main focus during my training." Rishima glared at him after a moment's consideration. "You were just wondering why I felt so heavy when you carried me last night, weren't you? Are you trying to call me fat?"

It was a live landmine that Eric had just stepped in and he was frantically thinking of a way to extricate himself from the situation when Erika chose that moment to step back into the room. He took the opportunity to quickly busy himself with clipping his armored vest on as he observed the vamp's new attire. She had chosen a large gray sweater that came almost down to mid-thigh. Her legs were covered by black tights and her feet clad in dark gray running shoes.

"Is this okay?"

"Let's go," Eric tried to sound suitably intimidating but, inside, he was just relieved he could find an excuse to get out from under Rishima's death stare.

Erica, surprisingly, had a small satchel that she was adamant about taking with them. Upon inspection, Eric discovered a couple thermoses full of blood, several CDs, and a small make-up kit. Rishima laughed at him when he growled and threw the bag back at the blonde. Upon exiting the apartment, the hunter and lycan waited for Erica to lock the door and then let her lead the way to Eric's Charger.

"Hey," Rishima said from the passenger seat as he started the engine. "I haven't eaten in a couple of days and I need some energy. You mind stopping so I can pick something up."

"As long as we make it quick."

"I usually like a long, languorous, absolutely _decadent_ meal," Rishima grinned at him before sticking her tongue out. "But I'll do my best."

In the rearview mirror, he caught a glimpse of a smirk on Erika's face before she quickly schooled her facial features.

 _How did I end up with two pyscho's?_

Eric shook his head as he turned on his CD player and, to his intense bemusement, the mixed CD began on Slick Rick's _La Di Da Di_. They managed to leave the garage without issue and drove out under a quickly darkening night sky. Between giving directions, Rishima and Erica chatted as though they were old friends instead of mortal enemies. It was deeply unsettling to Eric but he remained stoic as he focused on his tunes to drown out their chatter. Of course, his CD mix wasn't helping him keep his mind off of females as the very next song was Sir Mix-A-Lot's _Baby Got Back_ followed by LL Cool J's _I Need Love_.

By the time they came to a stop in a narrow alley, Eric switched to another CD when Lil Vicious' _Freaks_ came on. The angry growl of DMX came through as the beat of _Where Da Hood At?_ thumped through mini-subwoofers mounted in the reinforced doors. Rishima barked laughter and got out of the car. Eric resisted the urge to bob his head to the beat as he could feel Erica's eyes boring into the back of his head. The next song was NWA's _Boys In The Hood_ and that was when the vampire decided to speak up.

"Why are all these types of songs full of cursing and violence? I never understood the shift from the music I grew up with."

For some reason, she could get Eric to talk far too easily and this time was no exception. "Different eras, different attitudes. The messages never really changed, just the format and the willingness of white America to accept it. I'm guessin' you got Turned sometime in the 60's or 70's?" He continued when she nodded. "I was born in '68 and grew up in the ghettos of Chicago in shitty foster care. These songs speak to my life just like the songs you play in your apartment speak to yours."

Erika sat back then and they waited as Eazy-E rapped about life in South Central L.A. Before the song was finished, Rishima was sliding back into the car with a large stained bag and a couple of hand towels.

"I don't want to ruin the upholstery," the lycan grinned and immediately removed a bloody slab of steak. Without another word, she tore into it with a spine-tingling moan.

Erika was licking her lips when Eric turned back to address her, "Directions."

With that said, he took off slowly down the alley so the gorging wolf didn't get stains in his ride. Erika dutifully directed him to a road that led to higher elevations. Rishima had, by his estimation, eaten at least three pounds of steak. With lidded eyes, she had cleaned her mouth and hands with the towels as well as some kind of sealed alcohol wipe. Soon after, she had reclined her seat and was lightly snoring in deep unconsciousness.

"Is that normal?" Eric asked Erika who had leaned forward to place her head between the seats.

"How should I know? I'm-"

"-Not a Death Dealer."

Eric could feel those intense blue eyes gazing at him but he refused to turn his head. Finally, she leaned back and he could hear her drinking from her remaining thermos as she had finished the first before they even made it to the butcher's.

"Are you going to kill me, dhampir? Is that what you meant by 'releasing' me?"

 _I guess she's not as dumb as she acts._

Eric shrugged, "Maybe not right away. You're not my primary mission."

"But you'd still kill me even after I helped you; saved you?"

Her accusation brought a tension to his shoulders that aggravated the hunter, "You suckheads prey on humans; I prey on you. That's the way this world works."

"Not all of us do. You would kill people Turned against their will and just trying to live their life."

"The Thirst turns all of you... us... into insatiable monsters that just need one more fix. That is inescapable; inexcusable."

There were another few moments of listening to his CD before she spoke again, "I was turned in 1976, dhampir, and I have never willingly harmed a human being to feed myself. In fact, it's prohibited by all Covens for us to partake of human blood. Did you know that?"

Eric remained silent as Erika told him of the fear and pain of her early vampiric life. Of the constant humiliation by older vampires and of being shunned by her sire, Kraven, despite doing everything in her power to make him value her. He could tell by the way she was breathing that she was crying but he wasn't going to give her the satisfaction of seeing that her story was moving in a pitiful sort of way.

"Why are you tellin' me all this like I should give a shit?" Eric practically hissed.

"I just want you to know that I'm still a person, even if I'm a _suckhead_ ," Erika sniffed quietly, "I think, somewhere along the way, you forgot that."

Eric could see that the road was ending at some kind of temple or monastery with an open gate in front of it. He had the vents on thanks to the supernatural amount of body heat Rishima was putting off and the lycan bolted upright in sudden, full wakefulness.

"I smell blood."

The reason became evident as Eric pulled to a stop just in front of an overturned sports car. A short distance from that wreck lay the mangled body of a naked man in a large pool of blood. There was a large metal collar around his neck connected to a thick chain that disappeared down into a trapdoor.

"Looks like someone beat us here. Smells like the bitch that killed Lucian," Rishima growled and leapt from the Charger before Eric could reply.

Eric popped the trunk before he turned to his vampire captive and resisted the urge to return her tremulous smile. "Stay here. Don't even think about trying to run." Eric held up a detonator and grinned evilly. "We wouldn't want you to go boom."

"Can I at least listen to my music while I wait?" Erika held up one of her CDs with a serious pout.

"Fine. Just remember, I'll hear you if you try to take off."

Eric killed the engine but left the keys in the ignition. He quickly snatched his sword from the hidden sheathe near the center console and slid it into the holders down the back of his tac-vest once he got out of the car. Rishima was already kneeling by the body of the dead lycan by the time he jogged to her side. He saw she had armed herself with the 1911 in her shoulder holster and her Match's at each thigh. Her kukri had been shifted to rest across the small of her back.

"What do we got?"

"Somebody had this poor bastard chained up. Probably acting as a guard dog. Whoever killed him, ripped half his face off. Probably while he was transformed. Only Elders are supposed to have that kind of strength. I don't know what could have done it but my prey went down that hole."

Rishima pointed to what looked like a trap door a few feet in front of where the wrecked car had pulled to a stop. Without a word, Eric walked to the edge, took a look, and stepped over the edge. He drew his MAC-11 as he fell and, upon landing, swept both ends of the small tunnel he found himself in. It was empty besides the corpses of a pair of dead lycans. With barely a second to spare, he nimbly pivoted on his feet to avoid having Rishima land directly atop him. The Indian lycan had come down with a USP in either hand and covered both sides despite Eric already having done so.

"Aw, I thought you were going to catch me."

Eric ignored the comment and nodded at her to lead the way. With her professional killer face firmly on now, Rishima darted down the tunnel with amazing speed that Eric found himself hard pressed to match. He had an easier time when they exited into a vertical shaft with a circular staircase rough carved into the bedrock. They come upon a thick wooden door that had already been kicked open. Rishima holstered her Match's and drew her 1911. With her free hand, she gently eased the door open and crept forward with the barrel of her weapon leading the way. The door led to a wide hall with a pair of scantily-clad unconscious females. Eric could tell they were suckfaces from the pallor of their skin and the smell of the one with the cracked skull's blood. He would probably have stopped to finish them off if not for the mission that had driven him here in the first place. Rishima didn't give them a second glance as she came to a set of thick doors that looked like it led into a parlor.

Someone's increasingly frantic voice was whining about the trials and unfairness of his life. Eric paid it little mind as he watched Rishima's nostrils flare. She turned her head and gave him a small nod. They both placed a hand on either door and, on his nod, pushed them open with simultaneous shoves.

"Don't _move_!" Rishima roared as the three people in the room instinctively spun to face the doors.

The lone woman in the room stopped with her hands on semi-autos at either thigh while the bare-chested man in a thick fur-collared coat had fallen into a half-crouch as he stared at them with jet-black eyes that had no whites to them.

"Rishima!" The third man, who Eric could only assume was Tanis, grinned in obvious relief at the sight of the Indian lycan. His golden eyes widened in alarm as he caught sight of Eric. "Daywalker!"

"I see my reputation precedes me," Eric grinned but did not take his eyes off the tall, dark-haired man who seemed quivering tense.

"You're the one," Rishima seethed as she held her 1911 in a two-handed grip.

"Are you speaking to me, animal?" The short brunette suckhead asked in a clipped British accent.

"I guess those are going to be your last words."

Before Eric could even implore her to wait until he got his information, the furious lycan was firing her pistol as fast as she could. Impossibly, the man disappeared from his sight and reappeared in front of Rishima's target before the first bullet had completely left the chamber. Eric was impressed with how tight her grouping was as all eight rounds hit the man low in the abdomen. If she had hit her intended target, the woman's heart would have been shredded. This man, whatever he was, took all eight rounds as though she had been throwing spitballs.

When his skin began to bulge and change colors, Eric stepped up and fired his entire magazine into his chest. He had seen the tell-tale blue shimmer of those UV rounds that Rishima had for her pistols and, if he wasn't a suckhead, then he had to have been a lycan. His silver-plated rounds hit in a slightly wider grouping than Rishima's but the results, to his astonishment, were the same.

All of their rounds dropped to the ground with metallic tinkling as the man, now several inches taller with dark blue-black skin and a face vaguely reminiscent of a short-muzzled dog, roared at them in pained fury. Rishima and Eric shared one look, holstered their weapons and drew new ones in lightning quick motions. She immediately went to her other sidearms while he chose to switch to his sword.

Then the woman whirled around the strange creature with her own USP Match's firing.


	4. Escape

Erika lay on her back in the Charger's back seat, quietly singing along to _A Change Is Gonna Come_ by Aretha Franklin. She vividly remembered listening to the song with her little sister back in 1968. There had been little she had experienced in her relatively short existence as an Immortal that could compare to listening to a vinyl record in her father's study with a cup of tea, tray of biscuits, and her little sister. The vampire hunter had a good sound system but there was something so authentic about a turntable even if modern speakers did help with the depth of sound.

 _He's not going to kill me_ , the thought was ridiculous and she had chided herself for the strange certainty of it ever since she had awakened.

Alone with a lycan, she had expected Rishima to act with barely restrained barbarism but the Indian woman had been quite polite during most of their interactions. Then, in a shocking twist that she could not have foreseen even if she had lived to be a thousand, Rishima threw out a casually flirtatious comment about the way her bum raised itself slightly while she slept. To her horror, she had found herself replying in kind to the effect that at least her lips hadn't been designed by someone going for 'world's most pouty slattern'. That had led to playful teasing of her use of the word slattern which, to be fair, was pretty outdated even when she was mortal. Even when Erika had shrieked at the lycan about leaving a small clump of her hair in the guest shower, it had been more about relieving stress than actual animosity.

 _Am I making friends with an animal?_ Erika thought back to the sight of Rishima's smile, the way her dark eyes twinkled, and how good she looked wet. _I want to fuck an animal?!_ She amended with a rueful shake of her head. Then she thought of Blade's chiseled torso and felt blood rush to her cheeks. _What is wrong with me? I should be trying to get out of here!_ Instead of plotting to escape, her traitorous brain began conjuring images of her hands running over both sets of bodies, causing a delicious tingling in her fingertips as well as between her legs.

The blonde vampire was so enthralled by her fantasy that she failed to hear the motorcycle engines until the first vehicle blew past the Charger. With a stifled shriek, quickly cut off when she clamped both hands over her mouth, Erika slowly sat up and looked through the windshield from behind the cover of the driver's headrest. More motorcycles flitted past the car until there were at least a dozen arrayed in front of the wide doors to the former monastery. Erika hissed quietly at the sight of that towering imbecile, Brutus, jumping off the lead bike and awkwardly cradling what looked like some kind of shotgun. The vampire was a little over three hundred years old and had been trying to become a Death Dealer for nearly two centuries. It said a lot about his aptitude that, despite the losses the vampire army had incurred over time, they still wouldn't take him.

 _Why are they taking orders from him? He's always been a bit of a joke amongst the Coven._

Erika had to once again stifle a scream when the winged shape of Marcus dropped down to land before the doors. He was shirtless but had taken the time to find some more modern leather pants, boots, and a wide leather belt that looked gilded in gold. One would be forgiven for mistaking him for a punk rocker from the 80's if they could ignore the wings that were grotesquely collapsing themselves into some kind of pockets in his back. Erika felt her gorge rising and swallowed several times to keep her still undigested blood down.

Fortunately for her, no one paid much attention to the tinted windows of Blade's car as Marcus pushed open the barricaded main doors as though they weighed nothing and his group stormed inside. Erika wasted no time in sliding into the driver's seat and starting the Charger. Her hand hovered above the stick and shook uncontrollably.

 _Just run. He'll be too busy to hit that button. Just run._

"Fuck, fuck, _fuck_!" She screamed each time she jammed her palm on the horn.

Only then did the vampire put the Charger into reverse and back out of the driveway in a cloud of tire smoke and gravel.

* * *

 _This is not how I thought this was going to go_ , Eric thought as he threw a five-punch combination adapted from Wing Chun followed by a Thai-style leg kick.

All six blows landed and a normal suckhead would have probably had a fractured thigh bone from the force of the leg kick. Whatever the thing he fought now was didn't even flinch and started swinging wildly with wicked claws. Eric had lost his sword after landing a glancing blow to this monster's right shoulder, the wound was already healed to his consternation, and now they were fighting at close range. So far, he had avoided every attempt to tear his throat out, but it was a close thing. Only the bastard's seeming inexperience in hand-to-hand had kept him alive so far but, inexplicably, he seemed to be getting better with every move.

To illustrate that point, Eric had to check a leg kick very like the one he had just thrown. Despite having taken hundreds of leg kicks during training with Muay Thai masters, he had to bite down a shout of pain as he felt a hairline fracture immediately upon putting his leg back down. The adrenaline would help to kill the pain while his body worked to heal him but he was amazed at the amount of power that had been in the single kick since the technique that it had been thrown with was absolute dog shit. It had been thrown more like a karate leg kick meant more for speed than power. If the monster had actually gotten the proper torque on it, Eric had no doubt that his leg with have shattered like a matchstick.

The maneuver left his opponent vulnerable though and the veteran hunter didn't hesitate to capitalize. He slammed a step-in right hook to the vamp-dog's face and felt the orbital shatter under the full power blow. Of course, Eric felt several bones in his own hand break as well, but that didn't stop him from delivering a spinning sidekick to his foe's chest that cannoned the thing onto a long wooden table covered in old books and candelabras. He was about to go for his sword when instinct took him into a roll as the vamp-bitch came flipping over his head in a tight ball and somehow took several shots at him. Not to be outdone, Rishima soared after her with both of her pistols outstretched as she fired at the vampire.

Eric came out of his roll and right into the snarling face of the vamp-dog. With lightning-quick motions, the thing latched his hand around the hunter's throat while Eric went for the same move. Their free hands immediately clamped around their opponent's wrist in a futile effort to relieve pressure. Eric had a feeling he would lose a contest of strength with the big motherfucker.

"You're out."

"So are you."

Eric looked over to where Rishima had been slammed into the wall by the suckhead with one hand around her throat and a pistol pressed into her sternum. He was impressed that, despite her predicament, the lycan had her own barrel pressed into the underside of the vamp's chin. Before anyone could make another move, the distinct sound of a car honking carried through the old monastery just as a breeze ruffled the scattered scrolls around the vampire den.

"What is that? Smells like suckheads but... different. And... what the fuck is _that_?" Rishima sniffed the air deeply and let loose a deep growl.

"I think we have company," Eric wheezed through the grip on his throat.

The vamp-lycan thing released him and Eric did likewise as he did his best not to pant.

"It must be Marcus," the vampire who, judging by her skill, must have been a Death Dealer said with complete certainty as she released Rishima. "He must be here for information as I assume you are."

"Erika!" Rishima exclaimed as she retrieved her second pistol.

"You still have her, Daywalker?" The Death Dealer asked as she also found her twin pistol.

"Yes. I still need answers from him though," Eric sheathed his sword with one hand while pointing at Tanis who was hiding under the big table.

"Whoever survives can question him together. Agreed?"

"Selene," Tanis crawled from beneath the table with a look of barely contained terror on his face. "Surely Marcus can't pose that much of a threat. He is an Elder but between you, the Daywalker, and whatever your Michael is, surely you can defeat him."

"Michael is a Hybrid and now Marcus is one as well. He also has the benefit of being an Elder."

Eric didn't know how he was possible but Tanis' eyes bulged out even more widely.

Rishima followed Selene over to what looked like a combination armory and laboratory where he could see the same sort of UV rounds that the lycan used in her weapons.

"Someone will have to pay for Lucian's death," the taller woman growled.

"Kraven killed Lucian," the Death Dealer stated bluntly as she grabbed a box of bullets and loaded new magazines into her pistols.

Eric could see that the statement, delivered so casually, had defused Rishima's anger but there was no time for that. He saw that the Hybrid, Michael, had grabbed Tanis before the coward suckhead could make his exit. Eric walked up to the pair and tapped Tanis' face with a stake.

"We're gonna need another exit soon, I think."

"This way!" Tanis frantically pointed to a section of heavy tapestries that covered the wall to the left of his bed.

Before Michael and the golden-eyed vamp got more than a few feet, the door to the living quarters were pushed open and half a dozen blue-eyed vamps sauntered into the room. The tall blonde in the lead grinned widely at the group of five as the sound of imperious marching echoed throughout the chamber. Then a relatively thin redheaded suckhead entered the room and cast his creepy blue gaze across the assembled group.

"A rather august company you find yourself in, wouldn't you say, Tanis?"

"Quite eclectic, Elder," Tanis agreed in a simpering whimper.

The hunter didn't miss the fact that the vamps were staying bunched up instead of trying to surround them in a broad arc. It was a rookie mistake and he had the feeling they weren't dealing with seasoned Death Dealers. He carefully eased his hand a little further behind him to palm the half dozen vials of EDT he had hidden there as a back-up.

"Brutus," Selene seemed to be speaking to the blonde one in the lead, "What has he done to you?"

It was then that Eric noticed the vamps that had come with Marcus had curved, bat-like ears as though they had stepped out of the movie _Nosferatu_.

"Elder Marcus has made us stronger, Selene. He has given us the gift of his bite and transformed us. I am his Prime Acolyte!" Brutus practically crowed while he puffed his chest out as though someone was supposed to be impressed.

"Selene. I am disappointed in you. Aligning yourself with our kind's greatest enemies. Does your betrayal know no bounds?" Marcus practically seethed with self-righteous fury.

"Kraven and Viktor betrayed us all, Marcus. The entire war is a lie. I did what I had to."

"Oh, do not mistake my words for sympathy for that traitorous cur Viktor, Selene. He deserved his fate many times over. As for Kraven, he has already paid the price for his duplicity. That does not change the fact that you have sided with _lycans._ "

"Your own brother is the progenitor of the species," Selene countered calmly.

"Do not speak of my brother, wench!" Marcus roared and took a step closer. "I have come for information, Tanis. My brother's location and the key to unlocking his cage. Though," Marcus smiled and bared long, glistening fangs, "It is fortuitous that I have you here, Selene. The slaying of your family was truly a terrible business but, I have to wonder, why so much effort was taken to hide this fact from me. What did Viktor have to hide? Perhaps it is you, as the last of your wretched family, that has something to hide!?"

"You'll get nothing from me, Marcus!" Selene spat in sudden fury that, judging from the suddenly nervous looks several of Marcus' Acolytes shared, was far from normal behavior for her. "I don't know how I didn't see it for so long but you and Viktor are monsters cut from the same cloth. I swear to you that I will see all your have created burned to ash."

Marcus snarled and a disgusting rippling motion began beneath his skin, "You will give me what I want!"

That was enough for Eric and he began throwing the EDT darts as quickly as he could. The first hit Marcus directly in his left eye and the vampire Elder's head snapped back with the force of the blow. The second, third and forth hit their targets but the last two vamps were quick enough to dodge them. Just as they began to fire with the assault rifles they had held at the low-ready, they were quickly cut down by the combined fire of Rishima and Selene. Unfortunately, one of them let off a burst that threw Selene from her feet.

Michael roared and probably would have rushed for her if she hadn't rolled back to standing. "Michael, go!"

As the group made for Tanis' hidden passsage, Eric turned back to where Marcus and his followers were writhing around on the floor. The UV rounds should have killed them, if Rishima could be believed, but the faint blue traceries were fading quickly as the vamps foamed at the mouth. Those that he had poisoned with EDT had grotesquely swollen throats and lumps forming at the major lymph nodes. Even as he watched, the swelling was going down.

 _What the fuck?_

Eric put aside what it meant as he sprinted after the others down the dark, curving tunnel. Eventually, it ended in a thick wooden door that Michael kicked open effortlessly. They emerged somewhere behind the monastery and Eric wasted no time in leading them back around to the front. His first thought was that they could steal whatever vehicles the Acolytes had arrived in for those that wouldn't fit in his Charger. All plans for that went out of his head when they came around the curve to find his car missing.

"Michael, can you ride?" Selene asked as she went up to one of the bikes that the inexperienced Acolytes had left running.

Michael shook his head and Tanis began to panic.

"We'll be sitting ducks on those things!"

Selene took that moment to drop to her knees and press a trembling hand to her abdomen.

"Selene!" It was the first time that Michael had spoken after transforming and it came out in the lupine growl that Eric had been imagining.

"I'm fine."

Eric didn't think the amount of blood flowing from her abdomen was fine at all and, from the way Michael hurried over to offer his wrist, the Hybrid felt the same.

"It's not too late to-" Tanis began but was preempted by the lycan among them.

"Just wait," Rishima told him with a devilish grin.

That was when Eric heard the deep roar of his Charger's 440 powering up the incline. It was going far too fast though and he fought the urge to jump out of the way when it came barreling through the gates. Amazingly enough, the driver pulled into a perfect power slide that brought the car to a halt with the passenger door only a foot from Eric. His eyebrows raised when the door opened to reveal a wide-eyed Erika.

"Selene! Let's go!"

"Get her inside. We'll screen," Eric told them as the first Acolyte came barreling out of the monastery and began taking shots at them with an MP-5.

Eric returned fire on the move with his MAC-11 just to keep heads down while Rishima hopped onto a bike. He flipped forward onto his own bike, put it in gear, and quickly rolled to the driver's side of the Charger. Selene had taken the front seat while Michael and Tanis were in the back.

"You sure you can drive?" He asked the blonde and she just gave him a grin as her eyes turned a luminescent blue. To his incredulity, the sounds of _Born To Be Wild_ could clearly be heard coming from his car's speakers. "The closest safehouse then. Don't crash."

"I think we need to go!" Rishima called from where she was trading shots with two more Acolytes.

Somehow, Erika spun the Charger around Eric's bike and took off through the gates in a shower of pebbles. The hunter thumbed the dust from his Oakley's with a growl and gestured for Rishima to follow as he took off after his ride.

 _The shit I do for you, old man._

* * *

 _What the Hell am I doing?_ Rishima thought as she twisted the throttle of her stolen bike and followed the Daywalker through the gates. _Well, dear, it looks like you're following a delicious Daywalker and a sexpot of a vampire while being chased by some kind of super-suckhead._ _Can Erika even drive that monster?_

That question was answered upon the first hairpin turn. Blade sensibly slowed down and Rishima followed suit so they didn't soar over the twenty foot drop. The Charger didn't hit its brakes until seemingly the last minute and Rishima's heart leapt into her throat as Erika took the vehicle into the type of tight, controlled drift that the lycan had seen when she had been training in Japan in the mid-90's.

As the lycan leaned into the turn, she had to actively keep from gaping as Erika took the second turn in the S with barely any reduction in speed.

 _How did she learn to do that? Fuck me, that's sexy. Focus, woman!_

There was a relatively straight section of this mountain road that stretched for a kilometer and the two quickly caught up to the Charger. Unfortunately, five of the Acolyte fang-faces also managed to close some distance. Rishima looked back and snarled as the group of vamps leveled their weapons. One of them was even clutching an assault rifle in one hand while the rest more sensibly were firing MP-5's with the stocks folded. Either way, that would be a lot of bullets to dodge on a narrow, open road.

"Break on three, two, one, _now_!" Blade shouted and Rishima did as instructed. Thankfully, her lycan strength enabled her to control the bike as the back end rose with the suddenness of her braking.

The Acolytes, as befitted her suspicions that they were rank amateurs, rocketed past them as they fired a full-auto barrage at the Charger. That barrage didn't last long as she and Blade drew their weapons, her 1911 and his MAC-11, and calmly placed tight groupings into all of their backs. That served as a distraction, one of them even lost control of their bike, but the rest continued on as though they had been bitten by mosquitoes.

Without a word shared, the two quickly reloaded their weapons and took off after the remaining four Acolytes. The one with the assault rifle holstered it in a holder mounted on his handlebars and drew a Desert Eagle from a thigh holster. He was leveling it at the door when Rishima gifted him with a snapshot from her 1911 that hit him squarely in the back of the head. The impact of the bullet threw his entire upper body forward and he flipped over the bars of his bike to impact the road with his face at over seventy kilometers per hour.

There was only one more enemy rider on her side and two on Blade's. The two on Blade's side did not last long as Erika, to Rishima's chagrin, spun the Charger into another hairpin turn and managed to clip the one closest to her tail hard enough to send him flying headfirst into the thick trunk of a tree. When they all came out of the turn, Blade took care of the remaining by leaping from his bike, landing behind the rider, and contemptuously twisting her head nearly a full 180-degrees.

The final rider, quite sensibly in Rishima's opinion, braked hard and disappeared into the heavy foliage on the descending mountainside. At that moment, the short Death Dealer named Selene leaned out of the passenger window.

"I'll blow the bridge ahead to stop pursuit!" She shouted to be heard over the wind of their passage and, in response, Blade accelerated ahead.

A shape, dark and screeching terrible fury, landed atop the Charger with a crunch of steel. Rishima was again impressed with Erika because, despite screaming at the top of her lungs, she kept the Charger on course.

"I will have your _life_ , Selene!" Marcus screamed in primal fury and was then met with the remaining rounds in Rishima's 1911. "Filthy beast!"

Marcus reached down and punched the driver's side window. It spider-webbed from the impact but held together. Erika's terrified screams caused Rishima to see red and, in direct opposition to everything her training her taught her over the years, she holstered her 1911 before she hopped up onto the seat of the bike. Drawing both USPs, Rishima unloaded their entire magazines into the shoulder and neck of Marcus. Her aim had always been extraordinary, even when she was a human, but it was as though Kali herself was guiding the lycan's hand. Marcus' arm flopped uselessly as he raised himself up to level a black-eyed stare at Rishima as she holstered her sidearms and dropped back into her seat.

Before the Elder could rage again, Blade's MAC-11 spat death into Marcus' other arm.

"I'll peel the skin from you both!" Marcus roared and was answered when Selene hauled herself halfway out of the passenger window to place a sawed-off shotgun against the Hybrid Elder's temple.

Rishima would have expected a quip from Blade, she knew that she definitely would have had a sarcastic comment, but this Death Dealer simple expelled both barrels at point-black range. The blast hurled Marcus from the top of the vehicle and Rishima had to duck as he flew over her head. She whistled loudly as he rolled bonelessly out of sight into the treeline. When she turned to check on Erika, she found the vampire grinning in wild, adrenaline-fueled excitement. Disturbingly, the sight of her elongated canines caused a definite tingle in Rishima's nether regions. The lycan returned the smile just before she felt several hard impacts to her back. She frowned in confusion before her vision started to go gray as a dull throb began to radiate from the impact points.

Rishima was only vaguely away of the bike sliding out from beneath her or the strong arm that reached out at the last second to grab her around the waist. Even when that same arm maneuvered her so that she was belly-to-belly on Blade's bike with her legs around his waist and their crotches rubbing together in a very suggestive way, the world continued to fade at the edges. The pain was becoming the savage burn of silver poisoning. She could only thank Kali that it was not the deep throb that accompanied organ damage.

The small group passed over the wooden bridge without incident and Rishima drifted out of consciousness just as the middle exploded spectacularly in the night.

* * *

"She is dangerous, Erika. You know how lycans are. Aggressive, disloyal animals that will turn on you as soon as the opportunity presents itself."

"Says the woman that threw her life away _for_ one of those animals!"

The voices, along with the burning in her back, slowly brought Rishima back to the realm of consciousness. Her body tried to convulse of its own volition as someone sliced into her back with what felt like a scalpel. If she hadn't been secured to whatever bed she was on with heavy industrial chain, the lycan would have jumped up with a scream of protest. As it was, she bit down on the leather strap in her mouth and strained against her bindings. She was lying with her face through a hole in the medical cot she lay on as her mystery surgeon worked on her.

"Are you sure we can't give her stronger painkillers?" A man spoke this time, the strange Hybrid that had been with Selene, and her unknown care provider was revealed.

"Strong enough painkillers will interfere with her healing ability, Michael. She may not survive the silver poisoning without it."

"She can take it!" Erika exclaimed vehemently.

"How would you know how much she can take? For that matter, why is the Daywalker partnering with a vampire and a lycan?"

"I just know, okay? And Blade needed us; needed me!" Erika said that last bit so proudly that Rishima groaned in embarrassment.

Michael took that as a groan of pain and walked over to quickly press a cooling rag against her forehead. "It'll be over soon. Just bear with me a little more."

For the next several minutes, Rishima settled into a meditative trance that helped her transcend the torture happening to her flesh. Michael followed the same procedure for each entry wound. He would cut a cross-section, peel back the edges, extract the bullet with forceps, pack the inside with a cooling cream and then place a small bandage over it. The lycan's hands moved with the confidence brought about by experience and training. Before the two vampires had finished their argument, seeming more like sisters the longer they spoke, Michael was finished.

"Alright. That's all done. Can you sit up? Normally, I wouldn't ask but-"

Rishima smirked at his startled gasp when she pushed herself up and spun around on the cot so that she straddled it with her hands palms down on the surprisingly comfortable padding. She blinked rapidly in the harsh florescent light coming from the concrete ceiling before she took in her surroundings with the tactical awareness that had been apart of her life for decades. It was a small infirmary, approximately three by four meters, and had the typical sparseness of vampiric healing facilities. Namely, several IV stands, a pair of folding medical cots, a long counter with microwave, sink, and hot plate, and a steel freezer probably full of blood packs. Thankfully, there were cabinets above the counter that had been full of tools to at least remove bullets. Lucian had taught her that Bloods could be dangerously overconfident in their ability to heal from grievous injury.

Michael was standing in front of her with a pair of bloody medical-grade gloves and a comically wide-eyed expression. It would have been funnier if his eyes hadn't shifted to that cobalt, nearly black, color that they did when he Shifted. Erika and Selene stood shoulder-to-shoulder as they turned to her with completely polar reactions. Erika had a wide smile on her face and her eyes were shining in relief while Selene's were narrowed as her mouth set in a thin line of distrust. The look on the older vampire's face had Rishima surreptitiously checking for her weapons and was not surprised to find that they were no longer on her person.

 _Well... shit._

"You're okay?" Erika asked and looked as though she would have stepped closer were it not for Selene placing a restraining hand on her right bicep.

"Are we going to have trouble now that you know Lucian's fate?" The brunette vampire's eye were locked on Rishima's but her free hand never strayed far from the USP on her thigh.

"Lucian's fate?" Erika questioned as she looked at Selene with furrowed brow.

"Apparently," Rishima spoke for the first time and had to pause to clear the hoarseness from her voice, "Someone named Kraven betrayed Lucian and murdered him in the den. Your Elder hinted that he had punished him... fatally."

Rishima watched as Selene slid a hand up to gently squeeze the blonde's shoulder in consolation. She was surprised when Erika turned to Selene and shrugged with narrowed eyes.

"He was a shit. He Turned me but he was a shit to me for thirty years. I won't cry for him." With that said, she disengaged from Selene and walked to Rishima's cot. Rishima was surprised when the vampire laid a cool hand atop her folded ones and smiled warmly at her. Heat rose to Rishima's face as she realized just what part of her anatomy was so close to the vampire's hand. "Thank you for saving me."

"I couldn't let a smile like that leave this world so easily," Rishima grinned at Erika despite nearly dying as she realized what she had just said.

The grin that she received was worth it but, strangely, Erika's eyes darted down before flicking back up again. Rishima looked down and barked laughter at the sight of her bare breasts. She was so used to being naked after a Shift that it had never even crossed her mind that she was shirtless.

"Here you go," Michael said, kindly offering a gray Henley to her.

"Thank you," Rishima smiled at her fellow lycan. When she was putting on the shirt, her nose passed through the space that he had been holding, and she froze on the spot. She took a deeper breath and turned to fix Michael with a flat stare. "Could you come here, please?"

The Hybrid turned to Selene and Rishima scoffed internally at the shrug he received. He came within arms reach and Rishima wasted little time in removing one of her hands from Erika's embrace and sliding it beneath his shirt.

"Lift your arm, please?" When he did, Rishima rubbed her palm vigorously against it and grinned at the giggles the tall man stifled. "Thank you."

Rishima ignored the exclamations from all three as she held the hand up to her nose and sniffed deeply. Then she took a long lick and rolled her tongue along the roof of her mouth.

"Rishima," Erika chided her quietly as her nose crinkled quite cutely.

Rishima's eyes began to tear up as she turned to Michael once more and whispered, "Brother."

"Excuse me?"

"Lucian Turned you. Lycans can smell and taste each other's lineage," Selene answered for her. "I'm assuming he Turned you as well."

"Yes, he did. There are not many of us left that he has personally Turned and the other two are... pretty big assholes, really." She shared a laugh with Erika and it was only then that she noticed they were missing someone. "Where's Blade?"

"Interrogating Tanis. I would have preferred we do it together but... I was needed elsewhere."

Erika rolled her eyes, "She means to say that she thought you would wake up, Shift, and kill us all."

The glare that Selene fixed Erika with could have melted stone but Erika simply stuck her tongue out. To Rishima's amusement, she came to stand at Rishima's side as though she sought the lycan's protection. Rishima knew that was was probably one of the most deadly lycans walking the Earth thanks to her years of training but, having already fought Selene once, she had her doubts if she could take the vampire outside of Shifting. Even in her Were-form, it would probably be a close contest. Not one to ever let anyone think they could intimidate her, Rishima winked at Selene and was pleased to see her forehead furrows grow even deeper.

It was at that moment that the object of her query popped his head into the infirmary. He nodded at Rishima but offered not a single word of relief that she was hale. Instead he cocked his head back the way he had come.

"He's all yours."

With that pronouncement, the Daywalker turned and quickly walked away. Erika and Rishima shared a look just before the vampire rushed out of the room after him. Rishima sighed and hopped off the cot to follow her. She smirked at Michael as Selene beat them both out of the room to chase after one of the few remaining members of her Coven not trying to kill her.

The group emerged into a circular central area that had the dusty charm of a bunker that had not seen regular use in years. There were three other entrances/exits to the room and a thick central column with a stairwell built into it. Blade was currently standing inside of a weapons cage stuffing boxes of magazines and a pair of USP Match's of his own into a small canvas bag. Rishima idly noted that there was a least one box of UV rounds inside.

"You're just leaving?" Erika asked from just outside the cage, her left hand cupping her elbow in a nervous stance that was a complete mystery to Rishima. With Selene and Michael as back-up, she had nothing to fear from the Daywalker unless he got particularly lucky with a stray bullet.

"Got shit to do," Blade answered as he zipped up the bag.

"Where?"

"Not here."

"Did Tanis tell you who took Whistler?"

Blade shrugged as he passed her on his way to the winding column stairwell, "Ask him yourself."

"What about the Elder? He has to be a greater threat!" Erika practically shouted as the group ascended the stairs behind Blade.

"Not my priority right now," echoed down as they passed into the ceiling and up another few meters before coming to a heavy steel door. "Besides, I think you have enough muscle to get the job done."

Blade turned the vault-style lock and pushed the door open with one hand. The group filed out into what looked like an old dilapidated barn through which the first few rays of sunlight filtered through the neglected roof. Erika and Selene stayed in the stall that contained the door to the bunker.

"Why did you save me if you're just going to leave me to die!?" Erika shrieked as Blade threw his bag into the trunk of his Charger.

The Hunter stalked his way back, between a chagrined Michael and Rishima, and stopped in front of the teary-eyed vampire.

 _Damn. Someone has_ major _abandonment issues._

"Don't forget, suckhead," Blade grinned, "You're just a walking corpse to me." Selene bristled at the comment but remained stock still as tears spilled down Erika's face. "You're worth more than you think. You don't need nobody to hold your fuckin' hand. Get your shit together, handle your business, and help these three get a handle on the little war you've got goin' on. If not, once I finish with the Twelve Houses, I _will_ have to see what I can see about the Covens and the lycans."

Erika sniffled once and then, quite shockingly, grinned quite widely, "Is that your way of saying that you'll come see me soon?"

Blade growled and turned to Rishima. This time, he removed his sunglasses and, for the first time, she stared into his naked eyes.

 _Beautiful._

They shone like spun gold in the low light and transfixed her where she stood. It was no wonder that he wore them at all times. How he ever passed for human without them was beyond her; then again, most things were beyond her as Blade stared at her with such intensity that a tingling heat began to grow between her legs.

"You're also stronger than you think. You don't need a master holdin' your leash; deciding your fate. You can pick your family," When he said that, his eyes twitched to a still tearful Erika, "-you just have to have the guts to do it."

With that said, Blade promptly jumped into his car, brought the engine to roaring life, and sped through the open barn doors. She and Michael wordlessly went forward to close them together. They both paused as they watched the Charger disappear around a curve in the road that cut through the dense woodland.

"He's kind of a dick," Michael commented neutrally.

"Yes, he is."

 _Why do I miss him already?_


	5. Revelations

_I have got to stop watching her sleep. It's a seriously creepy habit_ , Michael thought for the tenth time in as many minutes as he leaned against the wall near the door of the room they had taken for themselves.

Once Blade, a ridiculous nickname if Michael had ever heard one, had driven off on his personal crusade, Selene and Erika had become whirlwinds of activity as they prepared to sleep. Tanis had answered all of Selene's questions quickly enough and even been given a room of his own after a meal. Selene and Erika had also drunk their own dinners before excusing themselves to bed. Despite having his own bloodshake, Michael still felt gnawing hunger pangs and had a tough time falling asleep.

Their plan was to find Lorenz Marco and seek his assistance in defeating Marcus. The secrets of vampiric history that Tanis had revealed, despite her outwardly stoic demeanor, had rocked Selene to the core. Viktor's centuries of lies and manipulations, creating in Selene a living weapon against the lycans, had warped what Michael was beginning to suspect had been a deeply loving, sensitive young woman. With every revelation, it seemed as though her world was crumbling around her and Michael felt entirely helpless. All he could do was bear witness and offer her what support he could.

 _Jesus, she's beautiful._

A soft knock on the door startled him upright and he quietly turned the knob to open it a few centimeters. He found himself staring down into the dark brown eyes of Rishima. She smiled and gestured for him to follow. There was a sense of familiarity and comfort that threatened to drown him whenever he was near the female lycan. He had been so surprised by it at the monastery that he had nearly been too slow to shield Selene. It probably was another weird-ass facet of his new physiology that had to do with the fact that they had been Turned by the same person. With one last look at Selene, Michael left the room and eased the door shut behind him.

Selene had seemed impressed by both Blade and Rishima. She hadn't said the words but the way she had questioned Erika about them after they lost their pursuers spoke volumes. Michael found it hard to believe that Blade was around his own age when the Hybrid had fought an Elder nearly to a standstill despite having almost died on multiple occasions immediately preceding that fight. It astounded and made him a little uneasy that Blade had nearly gotten the better of him. How anyone could become so skilled in a normal human lifetime was insane to Michael. Rishima, if Erika could be believed, had been Turned in the late 19th-Century and had been training for most of that to become one of the most proficient killers in the world.

 _How did I end up being surrounded by psychopathic mass murderers? Am I on my way to becoming one?_

"I don't think we have much to worry about here but we should go hunting while it's still early morning. That way we can be back in plenty of time for the daywatch."

"The daywatch?"

"Yes. Did Lucian not explain to you our ancient role as the daytime guardians of vampires? Despite the centuries of war, he always spoke of those days with pride. He thinks that without some sort of duty beyond mere survival, lycans more easily slip into bestial behaviors. Our Moon Father struggled for decades to come up with a plan for how our people could move forward after the war was won. I don't know if he ever did succeed." At Michael's furrowed brow, Rishima's mouth dropped open. "Father explained none of this to you?"

"Your 'Father' bit me in my apartment building three days ago. I had maybe three conversations with the man before Selene bit me and made me what I am. I don't know anything about lycans, vampires, or what exactly it means to be a Hybrid so forgive my fucking ignorance, okay?!"

Michael didn't mean to snap but the pain in his stomach was just getting worse.

"So I guess you tried eating normal food, hmmm?" Rishima ventured after a few moments of silence.

"Yeah. It didn't end well. Selene said that my body can't handle normal food anymore. I think I went into anaphylaxis. I guess it's blood for me from now on."

Rishima laughed explosively and tried to stifle it with a hand over her mouth. Michael grinned slightly at the sight of the bun she had her hair in bobbing in time with her guffaws.

"What's so funny?"

"I don't know shit about being a Hybrid, Michael, but I can tell just from how snappish you are that you're craving some meat. I can see it in your stance and smell it from here even if you don't trust your instincts yet. You want to run your prey down and feast on their hot, bloody flesh. It fills you; body and soul."

To Michael's shock, her description had his mouth watering and his stomach clenching even harder on itself. He began to nod slowly and she offered him an impish grin before heading toward the central stairwell.

"I'm sorry for what Father did, Michael. He hasn't Turned someone against their will since he broke free from the Bloods. He always said that a person should always have a choice if they're going to risk death for a chance at eternal life. Far more often than not, the bite of an Immortal is fatal, but it's not the virus that really does it."

"It's not?"

"No. It's stress. The changes to your physiology happen quickly no matter if you're a Blood or a lycan." Rishima paused as Michael closed the hidden door behind him. "It's the pain that stops most people's hearts before they're even halfway through the change. How long did it take before the pain was over for you?"

"A few hours, mostly. Even faster after Selene bit me."

Rishima chuckled, "You really are special. I suffered for almost three days when I was Turned, Michael. At first, it started off like a standard flu but, halfway through the first day, it felt as though someone were grinding my bones to powder and melting my insides. Even my skull felt too small to contain my brain many times over. The length of time varies for many but I've never heard of the pain lasting less than thirty-six hours. It's why no one that I have ever heard of has survived a bite from both species. Lucian says that the last time a lycan volunteered to do it, he lasted through nearly a week of painful partial transformations before finally succumbing."

"Oh, I didn't realize. Why would anyone risk it?"

Rishima sighed as they exited through a side door and began walking through the woods. She produced a sling from the side-pocket of her cargo pants and fit a smooth metal ball into the cup.

"That's been an argument that I've been having with Father for the last forty years. Recruitment had always been slow until Marius and Essex began to aggressively target the mentally ill, the homeless, murderous criminals that only knew violence and death. I know Selene probably thinks that the Den she discovered was our entire unified strength but she couldn't be more wrong. Essex was in London, the last I heard, doing some sort of research to develop a concoction to cure our genetic allergy to silver. Marius is on another recruitment drive to America. Both have Dens that number in the hundreds and Lucian was growing increasingly concerned about their commitment to his vision."

"Are those the two brothers that you spoke of?"

"Yes," Rishima pursed her lips and, in a flash of movement, spun as she whipped the sling.

Michael nostrils immediately flared at the smell of blood as a hare was hit mid-bound maybe fifteen feet away from them. Rishima calmly walked to the carcass and drew a slender knife from her hip. With practiced ease, she began to skin and gut the creature. She looked up at him as she withdrew the tiny heart and popped it into her mouth. She moaned before extricating what he thought was the liver and devouring that too.

"Here. You need it more than I do."

Rishima tossed him the still dripping body and, to his disgust, he began to voraciously eat the now headless animal. He let loose a moan as he felt the first bit of steaming flesh slide down his throat. Before he knew it, he was licking the ribs clean and then crunching into them as though they were the world's most delicious bacon.

"Be careful. We have a powerful bite in human form but it's not hyena strong. That's only when we Shift. Hare bones are fine but big prey animals, you want to be careful. Teeth are a pain in the ass to wait for to grow back."

"Why can't I help myself?" Michael asked as he swallowed the last mouthful and panted lightly. "I used to have pretty good self-control."

"Honestly, it's our greatest advantage over the Bloods when it comes to combat." Rishima's face took on a distant look as she continued, "Greater than our strength or speed or ferocity, is the instinct of the lycan. Even in human form, we have the ability to intuit the means to ensure our own survival. Even if I hadn't shown you that you needed raw meat, you would have eventually sought it out on your own. Be thankful that you didn't wake up after having eaten several neighborhood pets."

"I fell from a building and landed on all fours without hurting myself," He confessed and she grinned.

"You figured you were going to die and just stopped fighting, didn't you?"

"How'd you know?"

"Letting go of the egocentric view that most humans are held back by is the hardest thing for any lycan warrior to overcome. Just letting your body _do_ what it needs to do in the moment goes contrary to everything we've been taught about being good, _civilized_ human beings. Only when you let go of all your conscious and petty desires will you achieve maximum lethality. The closest analogy would be the highest meditative states of Buddhist monks. Once you accept the beast inside you, then the easier it will be to fall into that state."

Without warning, Rishima again flicked a rock at a bounding hare. As they ate, Rishima explained more about the lycan's social structure. It was a more fluid system than the vampires; based on skill and merit instead of age and generation. There were dozens of small dens scattered throughout central and western Europe, a handful in southeast Asia, and maybe one or two in North Africa. He expressed surprise that there were not hundreds of them in the Americas and was told that Lucian had not wanted the lycans to become so diverse that they divided into fractious splinter cells. It did make sense from what Michael remembered of the lycan leader. He had seemed particularly obsessed when contemplating Viktor's final defeat.

The pair caught and ate another pair of hares as Rishima gave him a crash course on the basics of living as a newly Turned lycan. Of course, having a safe place to change during your first dozen full moons or avoiding silver jewelry were things he did not have to worry about. What he found the most intriguing were Rishima's clinical descriptions of the overall strengths and weaknesses of the two species of Immortal.

"The average third-generation Blood has a strength-to-weight ratio of five-to-one. Second-generation is more like fifteen-to-one. The first-generation was one sucker and no one knew for sure how high it was for Viktor but now that I know that Marcus was the first _true_ vampire, I suspect that much of Viktor's strength is a consequence of age. That Corvinus vampires primarily gain their strength through age is one of the biggest factors in this war. Lycans also gain in strength throughout the years but not to the extent of vampires. Training, both physical and mental, can also increase our capabilities. I've heard that the Draconis Bloods have the same ability since they seem to grow _more_ decrepit with age and lack of activity." Rishima paused as she chewed for a moment. "Your average vampire will be faster, stronger, and have much quicker reaction times than a lycan in human form. Death Dealers, all being second-gen, are even more physically superior. Sunlight is our greatest weapon when it comes to fighting them and that is why we weaponized it. Even fighting them in human form at night does not mean that they are unbeatable. Lycans, because of the ability to Shift, tend to mass much more than most vampires. Their bones are spongier, lighter than ours and they are much easier to move when caught unawares. And catching them unaware is not impossible since their senses are vastly inferior to our own. Better than a human's, do not make the mistake of thinking otherwise, but nothing to ours."

"Why are their bones different?" Michael asked as they resumed their hunt.

Rishima shrugged indifferently, "No one really know but, after seeing Marcus, I suspect that it will eventually help them fly. Birds have hollow bones, after all."

"So, what can lycans do then?"

"I already mentioned our Instinct as our greatest advantage but Shifting is definitely a close second. We lose our ability to handle weapons but, with age and training, we can Shift at will and retain the majority of our human intellect. Somehow, you have circumvented those constraints on your Shifting." Michael struggled not to blush as the Indian woman grinned at him. "Our strength-to-weight is normally around three-to-one for third-gens like us. Second-generation, five-to-one. First, well, we have no idea since they were all killed in the Purges when Lucian was born. That's only in human form though. That increases by an average factor of five when we Shift. Strength, speed, reflexes, senses, we have all of the physical advantages in Shift form. The drawback is that the young and impetuous have almost zero control over themselves when in this state. They are almost feral and will only respond to a strong pack leader. It is why, until you display the ability to control yourself, Lucian mandated that all lycans restrain themselves during the full moon."

"That couldn't have gone over well."

Rishima laughed, "Actually, Lucian killed any pack leader that wouldn't agree to it when he first escaped. Those of us that he Turned, as well as the generation after, have always lived by that rule."

Michael shook his head, "That doesn't mean everyone follows it." At Rishima's dark look, he realized that he might have hit the nail on the head. "Are there any advantages besides the senses and being heavier than vampires when I'm in human form?"

The question seemed to deflect her rising ire and she smiled slightly, "Haven't you noticed that bullets don't penetrate you as they should? That's one of the extra benefits of that increased cellular density. You're not bulletproof but you're definitely highly resistant to anything below a .45 pistol round. We can hunt day or night, unlike the Bloods, and we don't bleed out nearly as fast. Silver, as you know, is poisonous to us but that is not as great a weakness as the Bloods think." Rishima sighed and shook her head. "Lycans, as we are today, have a tendency to do their thinking with their fists. It's a sad habit that Lucian has worked hard to overcome. That is probably our greatest weakness and one the Bloods have exploited for untold centuries. It is why our Father tried to foster my talents and turn me into a methodical, patient, tactical warrior."

Sudden motion on their right had Michael spinning and leaping through the air before he consciously knew what was happening. He Shifted in mid-air and unleashed a rumbling growl as he landed on the large deer's back near the shoulders. His claws dug into it's head and neck as he wrenched with almost casual effort. The Hybrid rode his prey to the ground and stood over it for a moment as he panted from the sudden adrenaline dump. Sound from behind had him crouching protectively over his kill as he let loose a warning hiss only to be countered by Rishima's wide grin.

Undeterred by his posture, Rishima walked up and slapped him on the back hard enough that a normal person might have been catapulted off their feet.

"Well done, brother. You're learning quickly. Father was wise to choose you. Stop looking so guilty. Your pack needed to eat and you did the necessary thing." She laughed at his grunt of surprise. "I can tell when you're moping even with that ugly-ass blue face. How are you upset about this when your woman is a blood-sucking fiend?!"

Michael returned the grin and said, in a voice that still surprised him with it's gruffness, "Says the person that spent the night with _two_ blood-sucking fiends."

Rishima winked saucily at him as she drew her skinning knife, "That's not the only thing they're good at sucking. Now, let's eat!"

It was a good thing Michael's jaw had already dropped open since it made taking his first bite that much easier.

* * *

Selene was awoken from a dream where she was walking down a sunlit beach hand-in-hand with Michael when she felt a body sliding into bed with her. The event of the last few days were finally starting to catch up with her as, normally, she would have been alert as soon as she heard the door open. Being grievously wounded so many times and going through so many hard regeneration cycles had obviously taxed her superhuman body to its limits. She slid an arm around the person in the belief that it was Michael until she registered the swell of their hips and the fact that they didn't radiate the heat of her Hybrid lover.

"I see your wolf has softened you already. You used to immediately kick me out of your bed when I was freshly Turned," Erika whispered cheekily as she brushed back the fringe of hair that had fallen in front of the Death Dealer's face.

Selene huffed and groaned in a display of normalcy that she rarely displayed even to Erika, "I'm too tired to resist your charms."

"It's about time you gave in. I am a vampire temptress, you know."

The two shared a laugh at the old joke between them. Despite Erika's looks and current reputation among the Coven, she had only seriously pursued a relationship with Kraven. She had been one of the only members of the Coven that had ever penetrated the shell of icy disdain Selene erected for anyone not a Death Dealer and that had led to rumors that the two were lovers. Neither of them had been able to quell the salacious whispers so they had simply made it a private joke between the two of them.

"Did you really kill Viktor?" Erika suddenly asked with wide blue eyes.

"Yes," Selene swallowed and told her of the fight in the bowels of the treatment plant that ended with the death of an Elder at her hands.

That, of course, led to Erika probing her about the events immediately following. Selene tried to keep the details of her new intimacy with Michael from her friend but, as usual, Erika would not be deterred.

"So, your Michael gallantly carried you up a cliff and protected you from the sun, and you didn't reward him even a little?" Erika grinned as her eyes twinkled with mirth.

"I had just saved his life," Selene feigned ignorance as to the direction that the blonde was leading them in. "Why would I need to reward him for returning the favor?"

If anything, Erika's grin only widened, "So what is it like?"

"What is what like?"

"Fucking a lycan?!" Erika squealed when Selene pinched her just above the hip.

"Must you say it so crudely," Selene chided her friend, closed her eyes, and whispered, "Wonderful."

"Different than one of the Coven?"

"He's so warm, almost hot, and it's much more... urgent. Granted, I haven't been intimate with anyone in longer than I care to recall but it was nothing like this. I thought I was going to die when I came undone. I think I stole some of his warmth because I felt _hot_ for some time after."

"Uhm... that was his cum making you feel warm, dummy," Erika squealed again at another hard pinch.

"Don't be crude," Selene said with a smile as she remembered how Michael had been. "He was so passionate, forceful even, when we made love. Then he was so affectionate after. He brought me blood when I awoke that night."

"Oh, that's so sweet," Erika giggled. "Who would have thought, even a week ago, that we would be giggling over how a lycan is as a lover?"

"Well, technically, he's a Hybrid now and not a lycan."

Erika stuck her tongue out and crossed her eyes, "I bet he howled like a wolf." Selene rolled over and stared at the ceiling without comment. "Oh my God! He did!"

"Quiet you!" Selene hissed and then thought of a great way to redirect the conversation. "Why don't you tell me what it's like to sleep with two of the most wanted vampire slayers in the world?"

"Two? Rishima said that she just completed her training," Erika's eyes went wide in disbelief.

"The Death Dealers have a dossier on her. We call her Kali after the Indian goddess of death. We attribute over two hundred deaths to her over the last thirty years. I have studied her extensively. I even hunted her a time or two but she's like a ghost. She was public enemy number one until Blade appeared on the scene."

"But she's so funny!" Erika blurted out and then covered her mouth in embarrassment.

"I just bet she is. You might want to invest in an electric trimmer though."

"For what?"

"So you don't get so much fur between your teeth?" Selene couldn't help herself and actually giggled for a brief moment. She quickly schooled her features but outright laughter exploded from her at the affronted look on Erika's face.

Then that look turned sly and the blonde smirked, "She's very neatly trimmed, I'll have you know."

The two Coven mates shared a laugh for a moment before Selene casually said, "I bet Blade has a great body under all that gear."

Erika sighed dreamily and replied in a soft hiss, "Yes."

"Oh. And how exactly did you find that out?"

Erika shrugged and at least had the decency to look a little ashamed, "We spied on him in the shower for just a bit."

"You really are scandalous!"

Erika sucked her bottom lip between her teeth and nodded, "He's powerfully built _everywhere_."

There was another round of giggles that caused Selene to really ponder her mental exhaustion. She _never_ laughed so freely, even with Erika, and knew that the stress of the last few days was also catching up with her. It was time to get focus on the thin ice they were treading on. The Death Dealer could feel the severe expression settle over her face like an old friend and Erika instantly sobered.

"We are in a precarious position, Erika." She continued at the blonde's nod. "Once the other Covens learn what I've done, they will send their Death Dealers to bring me in for trial. They will do their best to kill Michael. After they learn that you have given aid to Blade, they will most certainly put you on trial for treason as well. The Covens will also be blaming me for Lucian's death and will send forces to take vengeance. Rishima may be the best of them but even Michael and I would have trouble with a dozen Shifted lycan warriors. If Rishima can't convince them that Michael and I are not threats, then we may be running for a very long time. That's if she doesn't simply take Lucian's mantle and resume his campaign of vampire genocide."

"I know all this. Why are we going over it?"

"So it's all on the table when you make your decision to stay or go. Distancing yourself from us now may help your standing in the Covens later."

"As long as we are still alive, the Budapest Coven lives, no matter if it was built on a bunch of bullshit. Michael and Rishima won't let those lycans have us. You're lovers with him and Rishima sees me as more than a vampire now. Just like Blade. They both really like me. I don't think either of them could kill me just for being what I am now."

"Are you sure you're not just being naive?" Selene countered with a frown. "Blade did just leave you to your fate."

Erika smiled slyly and then let loose a startled shriek when the door banged open to reveal Rishima in bloody clothing. "You scared me, you crazy bitch!"

"I'm a little upset that you girls had a slumber party and didn't invite me. That's no fun." The lycan took a deep breath of air and grinned at Selene. She turned her head and shouted down the hall towards the small locker room with four individual showers. "Hey, Michael! She's ready for you whenever you get out!"

 _Oh. She can smell it._ Selene had, in her lingering arousal from thinking of Michael and her together, forgotten that some lycans had far better senses of smell than others.

Erika hoped out of bed and Selene wasn't surprised that she was wearing red lacy boy-short underwear and a white tanktop that barely came down to her hips. The Death Dealer didn't miss the quick look that Rishima gave to the vampire's body and neither did Erika if one went by her shit-eating grin. Selene watched in amusement as her Coven mate went right up to the taller Indian lycan and leaned in to give her a sniff.

"Ugh. You really stink. Maybe you should have gotten into a shower yourself instead of interrupting our girl talk. Go ahead and make yourself pretty for me."

Selene's jaw dropped as Rishima returned Erika's grin and began to growl from low in her chest. The Death Dealer could practically feel the thrumming in the air from across the room. She expected that Erika, timid thing that she tended to be, would wilt and back off. To the contrary, Erika hissed to reveal elongated fangs. That only happened when a vampire was preparing to feed, fight, or fuck. The blonde stood no chance in a fight and feeding off of Rishima would fatally inject virus into the lycan. That left only the last option and the realization seemed to come to Rishima too as the growl cute off quite quickly. Erika covered her mouth with one hand as Rishima stared at her with dark, inscrutable eyes before grabbing her by her free hand and heading in the direction of the showers.

 _Maybe being passionate_ is _a lycan attribute._

Michael came through the doorway clothed in just a pair of sweatpants as he toweled off his delicious chest. He closed the door and nodded back in the direction the two had just left in.

"What's going on with them?"

Selene's brain had, for once, completely shut off and she simply whipped the covers from her body to reveal her nudity. Michael grinned and slipped off his sweatpants without another question being asked.

 _Passionate indeed._

* * *

Rishima, not one to be a hypocrite, didn't try to question why her body was reacting to a Blood the way it was. She just knew that her vagina was throbbing incessantly and this blonde vampire was the cause of it. That Erika was also in a state of mind-numbing arousal was evident as they entered the small chamber with a pair of cubicle showers on either side. There was a small changing area with a single bench and a small stand of lockers acting as an anteroom. Rishima paused long enough to close the door before grabbing Erika's face in both hands and delivering a bruising kiss that held all of the pent-up emotions she had been feeling over the last few days.

Erika moaned into her mouth and returned the kiss with fervor. When they separated, Rishima noticed that Erika's blue eyes had gained that strange luminescent quality that fighting vampires were prone to. She had experienced that in combat more times that she could easily recall but had never experienced it before sex. For some reason, that caused a strange tingle to pass from the top of her head, to her feet, before ending right at her clitoris.

"Selene told me about you... Kali," Erika revealed and Rishima stiffened in shock. "So, it's true. Were you really going to kill me yesterday?"

Rishima bit her lip and shook her head, "No."

"Then why were you staring at me?"

"Because," Rishima replied as she cupped the sides of Erika's neck, just beneath her jaw, in both hands, "I had just seen my Father's corpse, killed members of my own Den, was in a room with one of the most deadly killers on the planet and all I could think about was how much I wanted to crawl into that bed with you. How I wanted to kiss every inch of you. How I wanted to make you mine and become yours. I felt guilty for wanting it and only that stopped me from doing all those wonderful things ." The lycan warrior gasped as tears began sliding from Erika's eyes in an ever increasing flow. "Oh. Why are you crying?"

Erika simply shook her head and lifted the hem of Rishima's shirt. "Let's get you clean so we can work on that."

Rishima laughed and quickly began undressing. Soon, the two were naked and beneath the central showerhead in the closest shower stall. They could barely keep their hands to themselves so, by some mutual near-telepathic agreement, they began washing each other. Erika even took the time to use the combination shampoo and bodywash on Rishima's hair before they were done. Neither bothered to fully dress once they were done and simply scampered to Erika's room fully nude. While Rishima locked the door, Erika put one of her CDs in the player set up beside the door. Small speakers placed in all four corners of the ceiling began to play _Unchained Melody_. It sounded like the Righteous Brothers, which fit with when Erika was Turned, and Rishima tried not to laugh at the sheepish expression on Erika's face when she turned around.

The Indian lycan grabbed Erika around the waist and lifted her up until the vampire's legs wrapped themselves around her waist. She leaned her head back to receive the kiss that Erika almost feverishly planted on her. They stayed that way for some time as Rishima alternated sucking and licking the vampire's neck, jaw, and upper chest. Finally, when Erika had begun grinding against her with plaintive mewls, Rishima laid her prey down onto the twin-sized bed. With a grin, Rishima wasted no time in laying down beside the vampire and leaning over to bite not-so-gently on her ear.

"Spread your legs," Rishima grinned as Erika quickly did so and she hooked her right leg over the vampiress' left to keep them spread. "You feel so good."

Rishima continued biting and sucking on Erika's neck as she let her hand trail it's way down to the vampire's relatively cool center. Of course, it felt kind of warm now but nowhere near as hot as lycan flesh. The contrast was a little strange but didn't take away the haze of lust that permeated Rishima's very being. Erika gasped and arched her back when Rishima finally made contact and proceeded to waste zero time in focusing in on Erika's button. She was so slick already that the lycan's digits flowed across the taut flesh as though they were coated in oil.

"That's so _good_! Ri, God, why is it so _good_!" Erika's last word ended in a shriek of ear-splitting proportions as she came and it sounded like music to Rishima's ears.

Erika's entire body stiffened and bucked so hard that Rishima had a feeling she would have thrown her off the bed entirely if she was a normal human. As it was, the dark-haired woman simply bit the blonde lightly on the shoulder as she shuddered in ecstasy. Seeing that Erika was incapacitated for the moment, Rishima took the time to jog back to her room to pick up one of her own mix CDs. On the way, a shriek not too dissimilar to Erika's pierced the tomb-like atmosphere of the safehouse.

 _That's the way, brother,_ Rishima thought with a grin as she closed the door and found Erika kneeling on the bed with a look of relief on her face at the lycan's return. _Is everyone such a shit to the woman that she's surprised I came back? Fuck that._

Rishima winked at Erika as she put her own CD in and sauntered back to the bed as the first strains of the Yeah Yeah Yeah's _Y Control_ filled the room. Erika surprised her by using her supernatural speed to get off the bed, circle behind Rishima, and push her over the edge of the frame. She could have reacted quickly enough to stop it but the lycan warrior was excited to see where this would go as she pulled her legs up onto the mattress. She was not disappointed when Erika straddled her hips and leaned down to plant yet another long, deep kiss on her lips. Then the vampire hissed when Rishima reached down to squeeze her ass with both hands. When Erika reared up and grinned down at Rishima with a smirk, the throb in her pussy reached unparalleled heights.

Erika began to slide down Rishima's body, trailing kisses and languorous suction at key points, before she began to spread Rishima's legs. The lycan was having none of that though. She grabbed the blonde by the biceps and pulled her back up so that they were mouth-to-mouth again.

"I can't wait to taste you," Rishima breathed into her lover's mouth. "Turn around."

Erika nodded in mute submission as she spun around so that her gorgeous bottom was situated just above Rishima's face. When the blonde vampire leaned over, Rishima was afforded a perfect view of her womanhood. It was a deep shade of red in the center and her labia quite the lovely shade of pink. There was also a copious amount of fluid built up around it from the attention Rishima had previous paid her.

All thought was blasted from the lycan's head at the first touch of Erika's tongue on her clit. She had been so engrossed in her study of Erika's anatomy that Rishima had barely been aware of the fingers parting her own labia. Now, as Erika's lips wrapped around her button, Rishima had to fight the instinctive straightening of her legs as she was sucked to orgasm in less than thirty seconds. The howl that emerged from her throat would have embarrassed her in the Den. Here, with this woman, she found that she didn't care in the slightest. Lights danced in her sight as Erika settled down into lazy licks that only inflamed Rishima further.

 _I can't have her out eating me_ , Rishima thought with a naughty smirk as she grabbed Erika's thighs from beneath and maneuvered her pussy so that it settled directly above her mouth.

 _Date With The Night_ came on as the lycan licked a line alone the vampire's pink slit. The taste was a combination of sweet and salty that she could see herself becoming addicted to. Erika squealed and then moaned into Rishima's center as the lycan viciously sucked her clit. Before the song was over, first Erika and then Rishima reached orgasm with thunderous finality. When Rishima finally stopped having aftershocks that rocked her entire body, Erika flopped onto her back beside the still trembling lycan woman.

"I'm sleepy," Erika said, planted a kiss on Rishima's shoulder, rolled onto her stomach, and promptly went to sleep with her ass elevated just a hair.

Rishima blinked groggily a few times before her laughter echoed through the room.

* * *

Rishima found Michael at the small row of CCTV monitors that were connected to the perimeter cameras. After leaving Erika's room, all of the doubts and fears about their situation came crashing down on her; not least of all was the fact that she had just had mind-blowing sex with one of the enemy.

"Penny for your thoughts," Michael asked in a low voice as she took a seat next to him.

Rishima took a moment to actually take stock of all the thoughts running through her head before she simply said, "I don't know what I'm doing."

"None of us do. Selene and I have been playing it by ear ever since we met."

"This war has been going on for centuries. I'm less than a century old. You're not even past your first mortal lifespan."

"Viktor is dead. Lucian is dead. We'll deal with the other Covens and Dens later. For now, we have to stop Marcus before he unleashes an apocalypse."

"What comes after though?" Rishima couldn't help but look back towards Erika's room.

"Is it always so good? The first time? I thought it might be a vampire thing."

Rishima shook her head, "Not that I know of. Unless it's a Talent."

"A Talent."

"The virus doesn't just change us physically. It does things to our brains. After Turning, most people discover they have a talent that they never did before."

"Let me guess, you have a Talent for fighting?" Michael chuckled as Rishima nearly doubled over in her chair from laughter.

"No. I got all of my skill from training. My Talent is for dancing. I had _no_ feet when it came to dancing. I could barely follow the simplest of directions when trying to learn. After I Turned, there was no sort of dancing I couldn't master in a short span with minimal effort." Rishima sighed as she remembered something Lucian had once told her. "Lucian had a theory that those with more martial personalities before changing gained something that was entirely unless for combat. Those with more peaceable natures gained Talents that would help them better defend themselves. It's a dumb theory and hard to prove since no one likes to divulge what their Talent is."

"Oh. Have you ever heard of someone being Talented at sex?"

Rishima grinned, "No but that doesn't mean it's impossible."

"Hmm," Michael shook himself of whatever dreamy state was descending over him and shrugged, "This war is one of genocide. I can't abide it. I don't know about you or Selene but I'm going to do what I can to stop it. There must be individuals on both sides that want nothing more than to live whatever kind of life they can eke out of an immortal existence. They're the ones I'd fight for. So that they don't have to look over their shoulders for the rest of their lives."

Rishima nodded in agreement, "That is a worthy goal."

"And if we can get everyone to agree to an armistice, that means we can stay in bed all day with certain individuals without worrying about an assault team bursting into the room."

"Well, if I wasn't convinced before, you've convinced me now. I'm with you, brother." Rishima held out her hand for him to shake and Michael stared at it for a long moment before grasping it firmly.

"Thank you... sister."


	6. Forefather

_I've lived for nearly a century and never felt this way. How is it that, in forty-eight hours, I've met two people that make me feel so strong and yet so weak._

Rishima, despite her thoughts, returned Erika's shy, furtive smile as they faced each other in the third-row seats of the Escalade ESV they had borrowed from the safehouse. They were sharing earbuds as they listened to one of Rishima's Radiohead CDs. There was something so soothing about having someone to listen to her music with. None of her brothers or packmates had ever shared her interest in music and had even belittled her tastes on many occasions. Erika would occasionally smile at her and stare for long seconds into Rishima's eyes before shyly lowering her head. The sight caused a stirring in her loins that couldn't be denied.

The quick kisses and hands lightly stroking thighs may also have helped rouse her libido.

"Selene, could you make these two stop! I swear, if I hear either one of them sigh like lovestruck idiots one more time, I'll find a way to slit my own throat!" Tanis whined loudly from the middle row.

"Don't do me any favors," Selene replied icily while Michael turned with a shit-eating grin.

"For a guy that had his own little harem of vampire concubines, you sure are awful hateful about people getting cozy," the Hybrid titled his head so he could make eye contact with Rishima. "You having a good time back there, sis?" Rishima gave him a lazy thumbs up and went in for another kiss as her moon-brother laughed. "See? As long as she's happy, I'm happy. Once that's stop's happening, well, then I won't be so happy. You want to keep me happy, don't you?"

"Yes, very happy," Tanis nodded quickly and ceased his complaining for all of ten minutes. "Tell me, Michael, why are you so protective of a lycan bitch you just met?"

In a blur of movement that Rishima could barely track, Michael spun around and had Tanis' throat in an iron grip.

"Don't call her that!" He growled in a voice that caused a strange warm feeling in Rishima's chest. Only Lucian had ever made her feel so protected and it was a strange thing so soon after her moon-father's death.

"Actually, Michael," Rishima straightened up to reach forward and gently pry Michael's grip lose. "That's just how lycans refer to females sometimes. It's not meant to be an offensive insult like in the mortal world."

"Oh," Michael's brow furrowed in thought, "I still don't like it."

Rishima laughed, "Honestly, neither do I, but we can't achieve peace if we go around killing people for ill-thought language, can we?"

"No, I guess not."

"Thank you, Rishima. Please, feel free to resume snogging Erika," Tanis managed to wheeze as he rubbed his abused neck.

With a smirk, the lycan warrior did just that for the next half hour of driving it took for them to reach the pier where the decommissioned naval frigate Lorenz Marco was using as a base of operations was berthed. They were stopped at the gate by a quartet of guards in military body armor wielding assault rifles. One even had an under-barrel grenade launcher. Rishima straightened up and squeezed Erika's thigh in warning as she carefully drew her 1911 with her free hand. One of the guards came close with a halogen flashlight shining blindingly into the interior of the SUV.

"You're trespassing!" The man exclaimed in Russian. "Show me your hands and get out of the car slowly!"

"We're here to see Lorenz Marco," Selene replied calmly in the same language and, if anything, that seemed to set the jumpy security guard off.

"You stupid... I said, get out of the car and show me your fucking hands!"

"You want to see my hands, do you?" Selene said before she slammed the hand holding the strange amulet that Tanis had told them was the key to Marcus' lycan brother's prison.

The guard's pale face blanched as he realized immediately who he was speaking too. "Apologies, madam. Hold for one moment." His tone, to everyone in the Escalade's amusement, instantly became very proper and respectful. He twisted his head and spoke quietly into the radio affixed to his right shoulder. After a few moments he nodded and waved them through.

"Follow the track down to the blue light. Someone will be waiting for you there. Sorry about the reception, Miss Selene."

Selene nodded and pulled away from the wide-eyed guard. Once they were through the checkpoint, Rishima could no longer contain her laughter and was quickly joined by everyone in the vehicle with the exception of Selene.

"Did you see his face when he realized, Michael?" Rishima called to the front seat. "I thought he would mess his utilities."

"I couldn't smell anything but he could have. You never know," Michael replied with a big smile.

"You two are terrible!" Erika chided but couldn't contain her own grin.

Their mirth was halted when they came to a stop at a blue light atop an arch that showed the way to a short steel gangplank. Beside the arch stood a pair of soldiers manning heavy machinguns that were pointed squarely at the Escalade. Selene slowly exited the vehicle, followed by Michael, and then Rishima after giving Erika's hand a reassuring squeeze. By the time she circled the vehicle, another man had joined the pair of guards. He was holding an SMG in both hands as he nervously looked over the visible weaponry on Rishima and Selene. The vampire had twin USPs in thigh holsters while Rishima only had her 1911 at her hip. The way the human was looking at them, one would be forgiven for thinking the group had a tactical nuke with them.

"I'm sorry, ma'am," this guard spoke in heavily accented English, "You're going to have to leave your weapons in the vehicle."

"If we wanted to storm this vessel, human, there is little you could have done to stop us. Surely your employer knows this. Tell him that it is a sign of good faith if we are allowed to at least keep our sidearms." Selene spoke with such quiet certainty that the guard was speaking into his radio almost before she had finished her speech.

"Alright. If you'll just follow me."

"Michael, Rishima," Selene called their names and, to Rishima's chagrin, the lycan found herself following the vampire's unspoken command to escort Erika.

The lycan grinned at her blonde vampiress when she opened the door, "Come on, sugarplum. Time to meet the big boss."

 _Did I just call her sugarplum? Goddamn you, Captain Rogers._ Despite her mental curse, the thought of the cantankerous old Naval SEAL nearly brought a tear to her eye.

Michael hauled Tanis from the Escalade and marched him just behind Selene as the group filed up the gangplank. They immediately passed through a hatch into the interior of the ship. Several turns through tight corridors that ended in an equally claustrophobic stairwell saw them emerge in front of the portal to a small anteroom or airlock. Their guide led them into a well-lit room that Rishima guessed was just off the bridge judging from the windows she could see scattered about the room. The group went towards the opposite end of the room that rose up several steps to a dais of sorts. She snorted when she noticed that the lightning went from modern florescent to a decidedly older aesthetic. The ostentatious chandeliers were electric so Rishima was hoping that the mysterious Lorenz Marco wasn't a total pompous ass.

Upon climbing the steps, Rishima saw that there was a small dining area set slightly beneath a raised platform at the far end. There was even a waist-high iron railing separating the boss from his underlings that was only open along the central steps leading up to what one wouldn't be mistaken for taking as his throne. The man sitting at a moderately sized desk was not physically intimidating in the slightest but there was something in his raptor gaze that caused a bead of sweat to slither its way down Rishima's spine.

"The Death Dealer Selene and guests," their guide introduced them and Selene wasted little time in tossing the amulet that Tanis had said was the key to the father of lycans prison to the white-haired man.

Lorenz deftly snatched the amulet from the air and studied it for a moment before nodding to the single guard. As the man left, they were all treated to that glacial blue gaze.

"You're familiar with it?" Selene asked, far too belligerently for Rishima's liking. If Tanis had been supplying these "Cleaners", then they had access to the UV rounds and probably the silver nitrate variant that the Death Dealers had reverse-engineered. It would be chancy trying to get Erika out without catching a fatal bullet.

Lorenz took a moment to study Selene as one might study a particularly ignorant child and tapped the button in the center. Prongs, not unlike the blades on one of Selene's handy little explosive disks, popped out of the amulet. Suddenly, Selene's heart rate spiked and the Death Dealer let out a small gasp.

"You're Alexander Corvinus."

Tanis barked laughter as Lorenz leaned back in his chair and sighed under his breath, "I bloody knew it! All these years and right under my goddamn nose!"

"There was a time when I was known by that name. By any name, I am your forefather."

"How have you stayed hidden all this time?" Selene asked and Rishima was so overcome by awe that she allowed the Death Dealer to lead the conversation.

"Centuries have gone by while I watched as my sons wrought havoc upon each other and humanity. Not the legacy I prayed for the morning I watched them emerge screaming into the world. A tiresome duty, keeping the war contained, cleaning up the mess, hiding my family's unfortunate history."

"Couldn't you have stopped it?" Selene's voice had deepened with emotion as Alexander spoke.

 _Holy shit, he must be at least 1500 years old._ The thought led Rishima to identify what made his gaze so heavy. It was, quite simply, the weight of all those centuries piling upon the man.

"Yes but could _you_ kill your own sons?" The question was asked with a deep weariness and not a small amount of impotent rage.

"You know what Marcus will do. If he finds me, he finds William's prison. You need to help us stop him."

Alexander stood and walked around the desk. Stopping in front of Michael, he handed the young Hybrid the amulet. He took a moment to more closely study his descendant before patting the taller man on the shoulder. His expression when he turned to regard Selene was icy at best.

" You are asking me to help you kill my own son? You? A Death Dealer? How many innocents did you kill in your six century quest to avenge your family? Spare me your self-righteous declarations, you are no different from Marcus and even less noble than William, at least he cannot control his savagery."

Rishima could smell Selene's cold fury and she hoped the Death Dealer would keep her calm. Who knew what kind of power was hidden in the ancient immortal's deceptive frame.

"Anything I've done can be laid at your feet. Hundreds of thousands have died because of your inability to accept that your sons are monsters, that they _create_ monsters. You could have stopped all of this."

Alexander sneered at Selene's words, "Do not come groveling to me because you are weaker than your adversary."

Those words finally snapped Rishima from her fugue state and she snarled herself. "One shouldn't grovel to ensure that their species survives? You claim to be the forefather of the immortals and yet you stood by and let the Bloods slaughter my kind for centuries. You, _dear_ forefather, must be the worst grandparent in the entire history of shitty grandparents."

"Do not speak to me about responsibility. Your kind has become a haven for the degenerate scum of the Earth. If the lycans are not fit to survive, then that is nature. Survival of the fittest. Besides, who do you think gave Lucian access to the technology that allowed him to develop UV rounds? Or did you really believe he somehow managed to gain classified blueprints with his low-level contacts?" Marcus scoffed. "Have I been a harsh parent? Yes, I have, but never cruel."

"But you know the devastation William caused before he was captured. The modern world will be overwhelmed by an outbreak of William's form of lycanthropy. If he goes on a rampage in the city, only large scale war will be able to stop them and even then it will-"

Whatever Selene was going to say was interrupted by an explosion that rocked the entire ship. Rishima instinctively wrapped an arm around Erika and had her crouching beneath the dubious cover of one of the dining tables before the first echo had faded. She drew her 1911 in a flash as what could only be several heavy machineguns began spewing hot death into the night.

"They've found us!" Rishima shouted over the sudden screams of men in mortal combat that were interspersed with small arms fire coming from inside the ship.

A body unceremoniously fell through the skylight and through a table not far from the couple's position. All of them instinctively covered their eyes and then a tremendous crash of tearing metal slate brought her attention to the hole in the bulkhead through Michael had been standing in front of moments earlier. Selene didn't say a word as she marched resolutely toward the hole.

"You can't hope to defeat him," Alexander intoned ominously.

Selene ignored the man and instead focused on Rishima, "Protect him. You will be the last line if Michael and I can't defeat him. Erika, Tanis, seek shelter in the interior of the ship. You'll just get in the way."

With that said, Selene dove out of the window after her hybrid lover.

"Do you have a weapons locker in here?" Rishima asked as she stood to her full height and began tipping tables over. They were bolted to the floor but that proved little deterrent to her.

"No. Only a few mementos from eras long past."

Rishima stared at her forefather for a second in incredulity before shaking her head, "Well, that's just fucking great." The lycan turned to Erika and pulled her close to plant a deep kiss on those delectable lips. "Go. Pick a good hiding spot. I'll find you when it's done."

"Be careful. Please." Erika whispered and then was scrambling out the hatchway that Tanis had already disappeared through.

"I don't think all of this is necessary," Alexander stated in the droll voice that was becoming quite irritating. "My men have been picked from the finest Special Forces programs around the world and they are armed with state-of-the-art weaponry including UV rounds."

"UV rounds don't do shit against the Acolytes your son has created. And, no matter how well trained, your men are only human. Unless you plan on taking up arms, I suggest you let me do my job."

Rishima held a finger to her lips to indicate that she wanted him to remain quiet as she heard a stampede of combat boots coming towards them. There was an all too brief firefight and then the march began again. There sounded like four of them, heavily armed, and walking with the gaits of people unused to wearing combat armor. The lycan sprinted to the other side of the room, leapt, and clung to exposed piping above the hatchway seconds before the first glossy-suited Blood stepped into the room.

The Indian lycan snarled silently at the shiny black Latex-like material the Death Dealers preferred for combat wear. She had always thought the look ridiculous and not intimidating in the slightest. Of course, the four fools spreading out below her seemed particularly cocky.

" _You're_ Alexander Corvinus?" The woman in the lead exclaimed incredulously in a thick Russian accent. "You're just an old ass man. Oh, well, boss wants to have talk with you. So, sit, like good doggie."

The quartet were laughing like hyenas when Rishima dropped from her perch and slid behind the nearest one as smooth as silk. Her 1911 barked four times as she fired into the back of the Blood's neck. He didn't even have time to let out a squeal of protest before she spun him around, relieved him of his combat knife, and drove the blade hilt deep into the side of his neck. With a snap of her wrist, his already structurally compromised neck gave up the fight and his head partially detached with just a part of his spin keeping it on. In another deft maneuver she had perfected during her time training with former Spetsnaz, she captured the semi-auto shotgun from the dying Blood and kicked his legs out from under him. Rishima spun into kneeling position, fired two shells into two kneecaps, and then rolled to her left. Return fire peppered the area she had just vacated as she fired from prone and took out another pair of kneecaps.

It was obvious that none of the Bloods she was facing had gone through the rigorous training that true Death Dealers had to endure in order to gain the title. Each of them screamed their pain as they clutched the shattered remnants of their kneecaps. Rishima calmly stood, shouldered the rifle stock, and put a shell point-blank into the first Blood's head. The Blood cunt's face virtually disintegrated and the shock of the sight brought the others back to the reality of their situation. When Rishima turned to the next, she found a man struggling to draw his pistol from a thigh holster. With three quick steps, she was standing over him and another spent shell hit the ground. Shifting her aim up, she ventilated another skull just as his sidearm was clearing the holster.

"Please, mercy!" The last one dropped his pistol from shaking hands and held his arms out before him. "Just wait! We don't have to do this! We can work something-"

Rishima ended his pitiful pleas for mercy with a single shell and a sneer for his cowardice. Her acquired shotgun was a Benelli M4 Super 90 and it looked to be the military model with a 7+1 tube; otherwise, she would have run out of shells. She quickly went to the dead Blood she had relieved of the weapon and reloaded it with shells from an ammo pouch. After helping herself to his bandoleer, she collected an H&K G36K carbine and stuffed every magazine she could find into her ammo vest.

With that done, she settled down behind an overturned desk and went prone just beneath the curve on the right side of the table. She had a clear line of sight and she was banking on anymore Bloods being given pause by the bodies arrayed in front of the hatch. Rishima didn't give any more thoughts to what Alexander did behind her. Her supposed forefather would just have to take care of himself. Her blood was up now and all she wanted to do was make those who trespassed pay the ultimate price.

Long minutes passed as the firefight finally seemed to die down to a few sporadic, violent clashes. Footsteps, of the kind that those completely assured of their place at the top of the food chain seemed so fond of, echoed through the suddenly still air. A figure, clothed in a ripped leather coat and those same stupid leather pants from the previous night, sauntered into the room with an air of invincibility.

"Hello, fa-...-ther," his imperious greeting trailed off as he caught sight of the shredded remains of his Acolytes heads.

When he looked up again, Rishima didn't give him the chance to form more words. She placed a single shot into the center of his forehead that spun the Elder Hybrid around and dropped him.

 _No way it was that easy_ , she thought in amazement and furrowed her brow in concentration as he immediately rose to his hands and knees.

Rishima popped up from behind the table on one knee and fired the rest of the clip into his back. Marcus roared with pain and fury as he shuddered from the impact of the rounds. He slumped back to the floor but still writhed in his attempts to rise. The lycan warrior swapped her dry magazine for a full one in a flurry of motion that would have been too fast for the eye to follow, stood, and slowly walked up to him. From several meters away, she put half a mag into one knee and then the other half into the other. She sneered as the mighty Elder was reduced to panting like a dog as she reloaded the carbine and let the empty mag bounce off the back of his head.

Just when she was lining up her shot to empty the entire magazine into the back of his skull, something struck her left side with enough force to spin her off her feet. Rishima lost her grip on her carbine and managed to swing the M4 shotgun around on its sling just in time to catch sight of Marcus leaping at her with his vampire face on and weapon talons poised to strike at her. She fired a shell into his lower jaw and neck on instinct. He veered off course and crashed into the gate separating Alexander's area from the main chamber. Rishima, meanwhile, took all of the recoil of the shotgun since she was in mid-air. Her upper body flipped backward and the result was that she hit the deck neck first. Something popped and a strange tingling sensation passed through all of her extremities but she rolled through it to her feet.

Lights danced in front of her, her vision was fuzzy, and everything seemed to be happening to someone else; that was a sign of a bad concussion. She watched almost dispassionately as Marcus rose to his feet and sprang at her. Thankfully, nearly a century of training had ingrained her body with the instincts to fight and kill even if her brain wasn't being very cooperative.

Rishima dipped out of the way of the first stab with the right pinion, shot the opposite wing as it rose into position and then gave Marcus a load of buck right to the breadbasket. The Elder doubled over for a split second but somehow spun through the air as though he were in a Russian ballet to avoid the coup de grâce. She turned to follow him and that was when her vision grayed around the edges. Intense nausea caused her to double over and explosively vomit. She must have dropped her shotgun because, when she rose to find Marcus studying her with an infuriatingly superior smirk on his rapidly healing face, she was weaponless.

"I see my father found a suitable bitch to guard him," Marcus sneered and wasted little time in spearing Rishima through both clavicles.

The pain caused a brief second of clarity for the lycan and, with a lightning fast draw, she fired several rounds from her 1911 directly into Marcus' face. With a half-snarl, half-moan of agony, Marcus flung her to the side. Pain flared along every part of her back when she finally slammed into something hard and unyielding. When her head met it a second later, she knew no more.

* * *

Erika tried to control her breathing as she sprinted through the confusing labyrinth that was the interior of the _Sancta Helena._ Her heart seemed to be trying to fly out of her chest as she blurred with vampiric speed past panicked humans. Tanis was a dozen meters in front of her and disappeared up the short flight of stairs at the far end.

 _Shouldn't we go down if we want a place to hide?_ Erika had a split-second to think before a flash of light preceded the feeling of her body floating through the air.

Reality came crashing back to her as she hit the metal deck of the ship and an excruciating headache began pounding from her left temple. She could feel the relatively warm trickle of her blood running through her scalp as she looked around dazedly to discover that a quartet of Acolytes had Tanis hoisted up by all four limbs. They were spinning him in a circle as though he were a living children's game. Tanis screams were ghastly to hear and sent shivers up Erika's spine.

"No. Oh, no," Erika softly pleaded as tears began to slide from her eyes.

The screams of agony reached a fever pitch just before Tanis' right arm tore raggedly from his body. A long, thick string of connective tissue attached it in the loosest of terms to the vampire's body.

"Fuck me! I'm out!" The vampire that had been holding onto the limb kicked his feet in childish disgruntlement.

The other three laughed hysterically as Tanis' screams lowered in volume until they finally went silent as the rapid blood loss caused him to lose consciousness. It was a blessing, Erika thought, as she watched his left leg and then his right arm torn from his body in the strange game of tug-of-war the Acolytes were playing. Erika was having a hard time keeping the contents of her stomach down as they carelessly tossed Tanis' dismembered corpse to the side.

"What did you catch now, Frank?" The tallest of the bunch with a long black queue-style ponytail sauntered up after retrieving a really large gun from atop a wooden crate.

"I've got a real prize here. Kraven's little blonde bitch. Always had her nose in the air, right?"

Erika's eyes widened when she recognized the person's voice. She arched her neck so that she could look straight up at the face of her captor. It _was_ Francis. She would recognize his disaffected air and pursed lips anywhere. Most of the Coven had not even known who he was but Erika's friendship with Selene had let her know that the fifth-generation vampire was suspected of 17 unauthorized feeding violations; a number of them were as young as 7. He had become more and more unstable the last few months as his rightful paranoia about the Death Dealers grew. That he had somehow become one of Marcus' Acolytes horrified Erika.

"F-francis," She stuttered and yelped as he gave her a hard slap right in the cut on her temple.

"You know I hate that name," He said with a leer on his cadaverous face and Erika was not going to tell him that she had no idea what he liked or did not. "Looks like tonight's your lucky night, sweet Erika. If I hadn't found you, my friends would have torn you apart. Now, you'll get to be my pet. Doesn't that sound fun?"

"No, but this does."

 _That_ voice caused Erika's insides to warm and a fang-bearing grin to stretch across her face.

"Who-?"

Before Francis could turn his head, a foot of bloody sword erupted from the center of his chest. He screamed in terrible pain, mouth distended far beyond what a human could manage, and looked down at her in animal fear. She grinned even more widely as the blade was withdrawn and his heart's blood splattered her face. A blur of motion passed through his neck and then the headless body was sailing over her head and landing at the feet of the small group of Acolytes. They backed up as one and hissed in vampiric alarm.

Blade casually tossed Francis' head to the side as he stepped out of the shadows. His lip curled as he slowly scanned the group from left to right. When he looked down at her and lowered his shades just enough to meet her eye, to Erika's embarrassment, she could hear _My_ _Boyfriend's Back_ in her head. Her grin, impossibly, grew a hair when he winked at her.

"You didn't think I was done with you, did you?"

Before Erika could wonder who he was speaking to, Blade dashed past her and fired his automatic pistol at the Acolytes. Erika watched in horrid fascination as Blade systematically dismantled the inexperienced warriors. The tall one with the queue was dispatched first and Erika could understand why since his gun seemed the most deadly. He folded at the waist as Blade fired non-stop into his stomach and, after spinning through the air with sword extended, neatly sliced his head off. Somehow, he came out of that spin and slashed downwards to sever the closest Acolyte's arm at the elbow. Rising to his feet, still twirling, had that vampire's head popping off like a cork following the line of light that was Blade's sword. The remaining two fired their pistols at the slayer but Blade sprang into a standing backflip and two vial-darts seemed to sprout from the top of both of their skulls. Erika crinkled her nose in disgust as their heads expanded grotesquely only to begin to shrink down almost immediately. Blade took the opportunity to relieve them of the burden of their over-sized craniums by decapitating them with efficient swings of his sword.

 _Why am I so aroused?_

Erika was so caught up in her internal state that she failed to realize Blade had spoken to her until he was crouching in front of her.

"Yes?"

"I asked if you could walk?"

 _Of course I can._

"No, I don't think so. Could you carry me for a moment?" The sounds of fighting had died down and she didn't think her small fib would hurt anything.

Blade frowned slightly at her but, to her inner delight, scooped her up in his arm's as though she were a bride about to cross their threshold for the first time. She buried her face in his shoulder as she wrapped her arms around his neck and tried to stifle her girlish giggling. Thankfully, their attention was redirected when the sounds of several power motorboats drew them to the railing. Together, they watched several speedboats race away into the darkness as a man-shape with gigantic batwings flew above them.

"Let's find Rishima," Erika whispered in sudden fear and the neutral expression on Blade's face did not reassure her in the slightest.


	7. Legacy

A helicopter had landed while Eric had been dispatching the Acolytes that had been tormenting Erika. A half dozen men in full combat gear had quickly disappeared into the bowels of the ship. A tremulous voice had soon begun to issues directives for any surviving members of the ship to make their way to the main cargo bay for a personnel count. Men and women in white uniforms began to emerge and scour the deck for survivors of the brutal attack.

Eric ignored all of this as he followed Erika down a stairwell and into the tight confines of the vessel. He had been in such a rush to find her and Rishima that he had left his shotgun behind. It would have been immensely useful through the narrow corridors they found themselves briskly marching through. They passed several bloody and dazed members of the crew that didn't give them a second glance. That changed as soon as they came to Erika's destination.

"No!" Erika screamed as she caught sight of Rishima's still form with a bank of computer equipment molded around her body.

"Contact!" One of the men from the helicopter screamed and raised his submachinegun.

Eric grabbed the shapely vampire around the waist and swung her around. He grunted quietly as he felt the rounds deforming against his armored tac-vest. One errant round caught him in the right triceps but it didn't feel like it caught the bone so he would call that a win.

"Stand down!" A different voice, one used to command, shouted with barely continued ire. "Mikkaelson, what in all the fucking Hell do you think you're doing? If Blade wanted you dead, you'd be fucking dead, and the Elder was expecting him. Lower that weapon and go with Wierbowski to find Selene. Right. Now."

"Yes, sir!"

"Come on, young idiot."

Eric turned his head and moved out of the way as the taller man that had fired at them fast-walked out of the room without a glance. Another of the mysterious soldiers sauntered past with a shake of his head as he carried his helmet against his hip.

"Sorry about that," He said, winking one light brown eye. "Lad's green as a Leprechaun's balls. We'll get him sorted."

Eric turned more fully to meet the eyes of their commander. The man was a couple inches taller than he was a had a steely look in his light blue eyes. With a nod of acknowledgment, the man returned to whatever his men were doing. The hunter looked down at what he had once considered his prey, now he didn't know what to think of her as, only to meet softly glowing blue eyes. She opened her mouth in a slow hiss and, to his surprise, took a moment to back her ass up flush against his crotch. Then Erika came back to herself as her gaze fell upon the still form of Rishima.

"No, no, no, _no_!" Rishima shrieked in near hysteria as she darted to Rishima with vampiric speed.

Eric followed after her with the same haste and wasted little time in pushing apart the prison of equipment some tremendous force had buried the lycan in. Erika caught the unconscious woman and gave a sharp sob at the state of her body. Blood was still leaking in copious amounts from both shoulders and there was an unnatural tilt to her head. Once Erika laid her down with the lycan's head cradled in the vampire's lap, Eric took a knee to gently examine her neck. He could feel that several vertebrae were severely out of alignment; there was even a conspicuous bulge just under her skin close to her brainstem. That, combined with the amount of blood she had lost, was enough for Eric to know that she didn't have much time left.

He was surprised how much the thought hurt.

"Hey," a weak, barely recognizable voice came from Rishima's mouth. "Thought I'd never-" A pause happened because Eric knew she was trying to master the tremendous pain she was feeling. "-see you again."

Erika leaned down and kissed Rishima's forehead gently before whispering, "I thought the same thing but Blade saved me again."

Rishima's eyes, glazed over as they were, managed to settle on him and a pain-wracked smile teased her face for a moment, "I knew you'd come back. You're a good man."

"No. I should have been here sooner. Should have seen it through."

"You're... here now. That's all that matters. Don't have much time left, I think. Stop that bastard. He's strong but nothing a few fifty-cal rounds to the head won't fix." She paused to take a shuddering breath and fixed him with a fierce glare. "Promise me you'll end him."

"He'll be dead by dawn."

Rishima nodded once and tilted her head back to stare into Erika's eyes, "I'm sorry we didn't have enough time."

"Every second with you was a lifetime of joy. Please don't go. Please."

"One more request, Blade?" Rishima didn't take her gaze from Erika as she spoke. "Take care of our vampire."

It should have been easy to tell her to go to Hell after reminding the lycan about his campaign of extermination. Instead, like most fools when hearing a dying person's last wishes, he said, "I will."

"Good. Kiss me."

Erika immediately lowered her lips to Rishima's own and Eric stood as he didn't want to interrupt the intimate scene. He quietly made his way over to the side of the room where Alexander was giving his final instructions to the tall commander even as the blonde soldier was removing an ampule of blood from the venipuncture device in the Immortal's arm.

"Render Selene whatever assistance she requires, Samuel. Tell Carmen that this was my last command. She and my descendant are the future. I see it... clearly now. Carmen may be resistant but you must convince her, son."

"I will, sir," Eric could tell that Samuel was trying to remain stoic but there was a quaver in his voice that was hard to disguise.

"Who is that behind you?" Alexander asked, his voice seemed to grow more weary by the moment.

"Blade, sir."

"Ah. Blade. Come closer." There was something about the old man that reminded him of Whistler and he was stepping forward before he fully realized what he was doing. "Would you do a dying man the favor of removing your..." There was a pause for breath and his eyes glazed over just a bit more. "...glasses." Eric did as requested and met the man's eerie blue eyes with his own golden-brown gaze. "You remind me so much of my eldest son. A fierce warrior, stalwart in his resolve, but doomed to walk this Earth alone. Forever denying himself love and friendship. Do not walk down that path, son. Having a family, a place to belong..." This time the sigh was of long-buried memories rising to the surface. "The importance of such a thing should never be underestimated. You understand?"

Eric took a few precious seconds to mull it over before nodding, "I do."

Alexander gifted him with a sad smile, "I hope you do. Prepare a syringe for Blade as well."

"Yes, sir."

Eric looked to a trio of stainless steel tubes resting beside Samuel's bent leg. Each container had what looked like the tail end of the vacuum tubes filled with Alexander's blood sticking out of them. Samuel inserted a fourth tube into the receiver and watched with a carefully neutral expression as the Elder's potent blood filled it. Footsteps, quick and angry, had Eric placing his shades back on just as Selene came into the room. Behind her, the two men Samuel had sent carried Michael's blood-stained body on a stretcher. Eric moved so that the Death Dealer could take his place and grunted quietly at the sight of the massive hole in the Hybrid's torso. From what little Eric had learned of Michael, he had been a good man that just happened to have ancestry that made him useful to the factions in the supernatural underworld. It was one of the reasons the vampire hunter did what he did. He had seen too many families torn apart because of interest from Immortals.

"Did he get the pendent?" Alexander asked without preamble.

"Yes," Selene's brow furrowed in puzzlement. "Why are you not healing? Those wounds should not be fatal to someone of your age."

"My time has come. I tire of this world, Selene. I have been so tired for so long." Alexander sighed and fixed his sorrow-filled gaze on the Death Dealer. "He is too powerful for you alone."

Eric stepped forward so that he was just behind and to Selene's left, "She won't be alone."

"Stalwart," Alexander smiled in fond remembrance and then gasped in pain. "Together, even you two may not be enough to overcome my sons."

"You were the only one older than Marcus, the only stronger. You could have killed him yourself." Selene nearly growled in frustration.

"No matter what he's become, he's still my son. You four are the last hope we have. Quickly now, Samuel, before the potency is lost."

Samuel quickly handed all four syringes to Selene and she frowned.

"What will we become?"

Alexander smiled again in that grandfatherly way and whispered, "The future."

With that, his eyes slid closed as his head lowered to his chest.

"Sir?" Samuel asked in a trembling voice as he held a finger to Alexander's neck. "Let's take him to the morgue. I'll be back to get you sorted soon, Miss Selene."

Selene said nothing as the soldiers quickly produced a stretcher and carried Alexander's corpse from the room. Several seconds passed before she looked up at Eric with a fierce expression.

"I can't make the choice for you," Selene took a look at where Erika and Rishima were huddled. "And I'm not sorted enough in my own mind to convince them. Will you?"

Eric knew it was probably uncharacteristic of the Death Dealer to ask anyone for anything. Rather than make light of the moment, he simply nodded and held out his hand. She placed three of the syringes into his hand and, without hesitation, extended the syringe from the tube before sliding it into her right carotid. He turned away as she stumbled to where they had lain Michael and her body was wracked with either pain or tears.

"What is that?" Erika asked as Rishima looked on with increasingly glassy eyes.

"The Elder's blood. I'm assuming it'll mutate us further. Make us stronger. It might save Ri."

"Well, give it here!" Erika demanded with a determined scowl.

"I'll do it," Eric said before unceremoniously kneeling down and undoing the buckles of Rishima's armored vest.

"What are you doing?" Erika asked as he gently rolled the lycan's tanktop so that her sternum was easy to access.

"You ready?" Eric asked Rishima and the lycan nodded with a small smile. Eric exposed the needle and slammed it into Rishima's torso at just the right angle to pierce her heart.

It acted like a shot of adrenaline and the woman bolted upright with a gasp that knocked Erika back. When she sat up, Eric was behind her and slid his second syringe into her neck. She yelped and clapped a hand to her neck as she fixed him with a look of betrayal. As he was raising his own syringe to his neck, Erika's eyes rolled into the back of her head and Rishima also fell unconscious.

When he hit the plunger, it was as though he had just taken a thousand hits of his own serum. He grunted, fell to his knees, and then to his side.

 _I hope I don't bite my tongue off._

Then the convulsions hit him full force.

* * *

Marcus landed heavily inside the brightly lit lowest level of the ruined fortress. It was in such a remote valley of the Carpathians that the Elder wondered how Viktor ever managed to build what was obviously once a magnificent structure.

 _Viktor was a massive cunt but the man undoubtedly had vision._ As he shifted into his human form, the scent of one of the men in dark gray combat gear clearly wafted to him. _A human?_ Viktor took a moment to watch the men, far more than had survived his bite, and focused his gaze on Brutus as his second-in-command spoke to a shorter, swarthy-skinned human.

As though Brutus could feel the heat in his gaze, the younger vampire looked up to meet his eyes, and quickly dismissed his subordinate. With confident strides, Brutus approached Marcus with his head held high.

"Elder," He greeted with a half-bow, "Mikhaela radioed ahead and told me the mission was a success. I have been hurrying the fortifications along ever since."

"This is good but why are there so many..." Marcus snarled quietly and reined in the impulse to tear Brutus' throat out, "...humans and why did they not react to my appearance.

"They're part of a mercenary company that contracts with the Twelve Houses. We stopped using their services a few hundred years ago when containing the mongrels became much less about fielding large numbers of soldiers."

"I was not aware that we used... _Familiars_." Even the word tasted foul on the Elder's tongue.

"It seems Viktor kept many things from you, my Lord," Brutus gestured towards a hall at the opposite end of the courtyard that led down into the dark waters of the river. "If you please, my Lord, I'll explain more on the way. I'm sure you're anxious to see your brother." Marcus nodded impatiently and followed Brutus.

"They have some expertise in fortifying ancient structures and Captain Ibanez did not seem disturbed when I mentioned that you have gained the ability to fly. They come highly recommended

and have successfully defended strongholds against hunters many times over the centuries."

Marcus snorted as they entered the freezing river. He knew that an unprotected human would be go into hypothermia in less than a quarter hour. The Elder and his Acolyte were beyond the frailties of mortality and waded without concern. Soon, they came to a wall that took up the entire passageway. Brutus stepped aside as Marcus put the two halves of the key together, eased it into the depression, and turned it just as his stolen memories directed him. Both Immortals took a step back as the door rumbled upwards through some clever hidden mechanism. Brutus turned on the personal light source on his utility vest and the darker tunnel was illuminated in harsh relief.

The rest of the journey passed in a dream because, before he knew it, Marcus was standing in front of the prize he had sought for centuries. It was a massive sarcophagus, more like an Iron Maiden knowing Viktor, and had a depression in the center of it shaped like his key. Again, following his memories, Marcus twisted the lock in a precise motion that immediately drew a harsh clanking from the prison. With a look of hunger twisting his face, Marcus watched gleefully as the sides of the sarcophagus slid to either side. The proud shape of William's profile, even Shifted, cause a tremulous smile to grow on Marcus' face, that was ruined by Brutus a moment later.

"I expected him to be big-" Brutus yelped quite loudly when William awoke with a roar.

With contemptuous ease, William snapped the ancient, rusted chains binding him and made a beeline for Marcus.

"William, stop!" Marcus put a hand up to stop his brother's murderous advance. "Be still, brother! I'd no sooner harm you than myself. I have you now and we'll be safe once we destroy our enemies."

His brother settled down and nodded his over-sized head. Marcus held out a syringe filled with blood from one of the Coven that had refused his offer.

"But, first, a present for you."

* * *

"Blade, get up," Selene's stern voice snapped Eric out of the euphoric haze that Alexander's blood had sent him into.

Springing into a crouch, one hand braced against the floor, Eric took in his surroundings in an instant. Selene was standing just to his left with her arms crossed and an impatient look on her face. Rishima and Erika were seated at one of the nearby tables that hadn't been ripped from the floor. The lycan still looked as though she was in acute pain but she seemed conscious and alert as Erika gripped her hand. Michael's corpse, for some reason, had been placed in a bodybag with the top half partially unzipped. Selene noticed where his gaze lingered and a sudden look of vulnerability crossed her face.

"We're taking him with us. I don't want him too far from me."

There were so many sarcastic comments on the tip of his tongue but now was certainly not the time. The hunter simply nodded to the Death Dealer as he rose to his full height.

"How long was I out?"

"A little less than two hours."

"We have a plan?"

"Kill them all."

"Good plan."

"You two are the most fucked up, bloodthirsty twins I've ever seen," Rishima commented drolly from her seat. The lycan assassin tilted her head to their left where a cafeteria-style table was covered in weaponry. "Hope you don't mind but Erika and I took the liberty of bringing our weapons up. I figured you wouldn't want to waste time."

"You know I don't when it's time for action," Eric twisted his head to smile with one corner of his mouth as he turned to the weapons. "Of _all_ kinds."

"Did he just-?" Erika questioned in a tone of sheer disbelief.

Rishima actually giggled, "I think he did."

The smell of fresh, bloody meat turned his attention away from the hardware on the table just in time to see one of Corvinus' men bring in a platter covered in barely warmed steaks. Rishima thanked him with a cheeky grin and immediately dove in with both hands. Eric had to will his jaw to stay shut when Rishima held out one of her bloody fingers to Erika and the blonde immediately sucked the digit deep into her mouth; both women kept their eyes locked on his shades as they performed the act.

"A little respect would be appreciated," Selene grumbled as she began to arm herself from the arsenal on the table.

"Sorry, Selene," Erika ducked her head and Rishima, to Eric's disbelief, quickly went back to eating.

"Don't be too hard on 'em," Eric said as he checked over his HK91. He saw a box of 7.62 armor-piercing rounds and knew he had Rishima to thank. His normal, custom silver-plated ammo would definitely not do the job against enemies immune to the substance. With supernatural quickness, he loaded three 30-round magazines for his assault rifle. "You know how it is when you feel Death's hand reachin' out to you. Some just have stronger reactions."

"I know," Selene replied as she filled her USP magazines with jacketed hollow points.

The two fell into, Eric could hardly believe it, a comfortable silence as they prepared for battle. He slammed home a magazine into his rifle's receiver and then slid the other two into their pockets in his vest. His Super 90 was next and a convenient box of 12-gauge slugs had been placed near it. He had to remove his coat to slip the bandoleer around his chest but that quickly went back on as he placed four fragmentation grenades into compartments specially sewn into the lining. Rishima quietly joined them to begin assembling her AR-50 with the kind of smooth speed and confidence of someone that had performed the operation countless times. Eric momentarily forgot about his own preparation as she placed the finished weapon down barely thirty seconds after she had walked up to the table and checked to make sure everything was aligned properly.

Then it became a race to see who would be ready first. Selene, on account of arming herself with her USP Match's, one knife, and a dozen of those explosive disks, was finished first and went to talk with a patiently waiting Samuel. Rishima, to Eric's chagrin, was the second done. She had decided to go without her own Match's. Instead, she took her Python with four speedloaders, the 1911, and four spare magazines. Between the .50-caliber AP, incendiary rounds on the stock of her weapon and those she had around her left bicep, Rishima had a dozen rounds ready to go as well as twenty more in a special hard case she wore like a small backpack. Eric had rounded out his weaponry with his MAC, four magazines of his normal ammo, and half a dozen throwing darts of EDT. He would have to find more diverse sidearms if he was going to fight suckheads that were immune to silver.

"Do I get a weapon?" Erika asked hesitantly.

"Why would you?" Eric asked, his brow furrowed.

"Because she's coming with us," Rishima said before she handed Erika an H&K UMP submachinegun, a utility vest, and four magazines.

"Are you sure you can handle it?" Eric questioned with a raised eyebrow.

Erika grinned to reveal slightly elongated fangs, "There's only one way to be sure."

 _Stop that_ ,Eric chided himself before he could return the grin. It didn't help that Rishima was echoing her lover's, for that was what had obviously transpired in his absence, expression.

"Then let's go teach that flying motherfucker just who he fucked with."

Eric slung his shotgun across his back and cradled his rifle as he walked up to Selene.

"I still think you should take my men and I, Miss Selene," Samuel spoke with a stern frown plastered across his severe face.

"I told you," Selene said as she turned to face Eric, "You'll just die. You ready?"

"Always," Eric answered.

"What he said!" Rishima chimed in far too cheerfully for someone who had nearly died not too long ago.

To Selene's credit, she merely fixed Erika with a single glare before nodding.

"Help me with him, Blade?"

Normally, Eric might have balked at the demand but the plaintive way she asked had him complying without complaint. He braced his rifle against his shoulder and grabbed the foot end of the bag with one hand. Together, they carried Michael through the eerily quiet corridors to the helipad where an obsidian craft waited for them. It had minimal running lights and was definitely running more quietly than commercial or standard military birds. They slid Michael inside and strapped him to the floor. Eric waited to help Erika and then Rishima inside. He hopped into the cabin and quickly stowed his rifle and shotgun in the weapons rack.

"Good luck!" Samuel said before he slammed the loading door closed.

Eric took a seat next Erika, sandwiching the blonde between him and Rishima, before he placed a set of headphones on and situated the boom mic. Selene was across from them and couldn't seem to take her eyes off Michael's body.

"Check. Everyone aboard?" A friendly male voice with a heavy Australian accent came through the headphones.

"All aboard," Selene informed him.

"Alright. I'm your pilot, Dale, and your co-pilot is my ravishing companion who goes by Taz. Say hello, Taz."

"Hello," This voice, female and surly, had an accent as well that was a bit harder to place from the single word; South Africa, possibly.

"We've only crashed four times since we've been flying the Cleaner Express. You're in good hands tonight!"

Rishima laughed maniacally as the helicopter seemed to leap off the helipad before banking away from the ship at an extreme angle and accelerating.

"I think I like them!" Rishima screamed over the headphones and Eric could hardly blame her because Erika was shrieking hysterically into the lycan's shoulder.

 _Why am I surrounded by so many psychos_?


	8. Retribution

_I'm so sorry I failed you, Michael._

Selene hung her head and bit her bottom lip in an effort to silence the scream she could feel building in the back of her throat. After the emotional tearing she had felt upon seeing his lifeless body, as well as whatever the introduction of Corvinus' blood was doing to her, the vampire felt more uncertain now than she had since she first spared her lover's life. Even the fact that she was sharing a helicopter with two of the most prolific killers of her kind paled in comparison to the utter despair coursing through her at the thought that Michael would never stare at her with that look that was equal parts challenging, pleading, and lustful. She had rarely cried before she was Turned and the trend had continued for hundreds of years; yet, here and now, the Death Dealer knew that the wrong word would send her into gut-wrenching sobs.

 _Just a few more hours until sunrise. Finish it and you can see the sun one last time._

The thought, having rested in embryonic form since Michael had been brutally stolen from her, was sudden clear and true. What more did she truly have to live for? Erika had finally found the person she had been searching for her entire existence and, judging by the way Rishima was fawning over the blonde as the lycan went over how to operate a belt-fed light machinegun, that person would protect her in the days to come. Holding Michael's body as the rays of the sun warmed her sounded as good a way as any to meet her end.

With that decision firmly made, Selene raised her head to find Blade staring directly at her. Despite those ridiculous sunglasses he wore, Selene could feel the heat of his gaze as though it _was_ the sun. She schooled her features and, for a brief moment, worried that he would say the word that broke her. Instead, he nodded, so fast and slight it was almost imperceptible, exactly one time. She returned the gesture and something inside her relaxed enough that she felt as though she could take a full breath.

The helicopter suddenly tilted backwards as the pilot brought them to a hard stop. Rishima grabbed Erika around the waste to steady her while Selene stood and calmly made her way to the cockpit. She remembered to grab a pair of hi-powered binoculars on her way before she squeezed between them.

"We're about a mile out," the pilot, Dale, informed her. "Looks like they have a tight boat patrol around the perimeter. No airborne assets that I can see. The helicopter has a stealth mode and we've been running dark so I don't think they know we're here yet."

"But they'll see us when we come in," Selene finished for him as she magnified on the castle and searched her memories for a way inside. "It looks like the river has risen and flooded the lower levels. There might be an entrance we can use."

Blade stuck his head into the cockpit just over her shoulder and she handed him the binoculars. He gave them back after his own perusal and left as silently as he had arrived only to be replaced by Rishima. The lycan worried her bottom lip as she scanned the ruined castle.

"Well, this is going to be a tough nut to crack," Rishima sighed as she handed Selene the binoculars. "What weapons does this bird have?"

Taz fielded this question with barely veiled contempt, "M134 minigun with a thousand round mag and a seven tube unguided rocket launcher fitted with HE Hydra 70's."

"So, you can't take out those patrol boats?" Selene asked as plans were considered and discarded at breakneck speed.

"Did she just-?" Dale choked in disbelief. "Miss, we could shoot off a fly's balls from five hundred yards. Those jokers might have any number of weapons that could make it a really short fight though. We can provide aerial support but only after somebody gets in there and reconnoiters."

"There's SCUBA gear back here," Blade called back. "We could swim to the submerged entrance from here."

"I saw some 'chutes back there, too," Rishima added. "If they can get me high enough undetected, I can drop onto the exterior of the castle and see if they have any anti-air weapons and take them out."

Selene nodded, "Let's go."

"What will I do?" Erika asked, frightened but with a determined expression on her pretty face.

"Give us updates," Rishima told her as Selene accepted a rebreather unit and a pair of flippers from Blade. "If more are coming, sneaking up on us, that sort of thing. If you're feeling really frisky, you can even fire that big fucker in your hands. Just try not to hit anyone."

"Fuck off," Erika replied without heat and a tiny smile.

"Thirty minutes sound good?" Blade asked as he put on his gear and spoke into the radio. Selene nodded and he continued, "Ground team's callsign will be Fang, overwatch will be Claw, and support'll be Express. Everyone copy?"

There were a round of affirmatives and Selene wondered at the ease at which Blade was organizing their ragtag tactical unit. The scant intelligence the Covens had on the vampire hunter said that he only worked with his mentor. She put the thought out of her mind as her focus sharpened to a razor's edge in preparation for immortal combat. Selene removed her boots and placed them in a small waterproof bag before sliding on the SCUBA tank and checking the fit on the breathing mask. Blade was ready before she was and, looking like a walking armory with the amount of guns on him, waddled over to the door. The Death Dealer took a moment to caress Michael's cheek before standing and joining Blade. The vampire hunter was securing his assault rifle to his chest with an improvised strap as Erika and Rishima stood on either side of the exit.

"Synch at zero-two-three-six in seven, six, five, four, three, two, one... hack!" Blade counted down on the thick wristwatch he had procured sometime during their flight. The werewolf did the same with a similar and Selene felt a moment of professional shame that she had been too absorbed in her grief to do likewise.

Rishima slid the door open and the chill night air quickly filled the cabin. Blade removed his sunglasses and put them in a pocket of his coat. Before he could move an inch, Rishima was holding his face in both hands and kissing him feverishly. To Selene's surprise, the hunter gave just as good as he got. After several long seconds, Rishima backed away with a small grin. Selene's jaw nearly dropped when a pale hand spun Blade around and Erika tried to devour the man's mouth with her own. Again, Blade returned the gesture and even grunted quietly when Erika bit his lower lip before disengaging.

"Don't die, Blade. We have plans for later," Rishima teased the man but his demeanor was unflappable despite the fact that he was staring down into a lightly panting, glowing blue-eyed Erika's face.

"Many plans," the blonde added with a seductive grin.

At that, Blade actually smiled before he turned, placed his mask over his mouth, and propelled himself away from the helicopter. Selene quickly found herself enveloped in the arms of her Coven mate and awkwardly returned the gesture.

"Come back to me, Selene. I need you," Erika whispered into her hair before releasing her.

A strong hand clenched around her shoulder and she turned to find Rishima fixing her with a dark smile, "We will avenge my brother, you and I, Death Dealer. If you don't believe anything, believe that."

Selene nodded, put her mask on, and followed Blade out into the cold air.

"They really are like twins," she heard just before the cold water rushed up to meet her.

* * *

Rishima sat back and took the time she had before her jump to try to relax as much as she could. Erika, seeking activity to preoccupy her, practiced reloading and dry firing the LMG. Dale had leveled them out at a four hundred meters above the lake and they were waiting for Blade to signal that Fang Team was in position. These quiet times, just before the carnage began, were usually when Rishima was at her most content. Fighting for what was right and just had always appealed to her; nothing was more right than fighting for a world free of the tyranny of despotic twins with God-complexes.

" _Fang, in position."_

Blade's voice, deep and smooth, caused a flutter in the pit of Rishima's stomach that she ignored as she reached over her head to flick the switches that would turn the drop light to green. It was entirely unnecessary given the less-than-professional operation they were on but some parts of her training were hard-wired into the lycan. Erika's eyes widened as Rishima stood and strapped her sniper rifle to her front so that it wouldn't potentially get tangled with parachute's cords.

"Come here," Rishima demanded, giving her a stern look full of lust. She had quickly learned that it _did_ turn the seductive vampire on to be given orders.

Rishima grabbed her lover by the tac-vest and snogged her within an inch of her life. She could feel Erika's knees began to give a little and finally relented. Those eyes were glowing again and, Rishima still had trouble believing this to be true, the sight caused an almost literal flood of arousal. She growled lightly and pushed her away a tad more roughly than she intended. If anything, that made Erika's situation worse because the vampire bared her fangs with a quiet hiss.

"Sorry," the lycan assassin said with a tight-lipped expression. "If I don't stop now, I won't leave."

"I love you."

The words stopped Rishima with her hand on the door's handle. She turned and didn't even try to keep the shock off her face.

"We just met, literally, the other day."

Erika bit her lip and nodded as her eyes teared up, "I know that. I just... no one's made me feel the way you do my entire life."

"What about Blade?"

"I don't know. Maybe? He scared me so much at first and I think that's still with me some. You never did. I just... You make me feel like I can be strong but, when you kiss me, I feel so _weak_."

The words, so close to her thoughts hours ago, nearly brought Rishima to tears herself. She slid open the door behind her without looking before she planted one last, brief, heartfelt kiss on Erika's lips.

"I love you and I'll see you soon. We have plans, remember?"

Erika giggled, eyes still partially closed from their kiss, "Yes."

Rishima quickly settled her feet on the skid of the helicopter, pulled her goggles down, and leaned forward to fall into the cold night air. Dale had maneuvered the chopper so that they had drifted about a half mile from the castle. The lycan quickly angled herself so that she was on course for the tallest remaining structure on the island. It had been a tower of some kind, maybe a part of the ancient battlements, and it would serve her well as she scouted the exterior locations. Of course, there was a spotlight on top of the wall but there was an easy way to avoid that.

With professional focus, Rishima pulled her chute a little higher than one hundred meters and descended at it's maximum rate, deftly avoiding the slow circle of the spotlight, until she was tightly circling the remnants of the tower itself. Quickly undoing the harness, Rishima drew a deep breath just before shucking off her parachute seventy meters from the top of the tower. She had time to reorient her AR-50, draw her kukri from it's back sheath, and lean forward before the ancient stone of the castle rose to meet her. The impact was taken up by a three-point stance with her kukri held up and away from her body. She could feel stress fractures in both ankles and her wrist but nothing debilitating. Thankfully, she had landed behind the trio of humans assigned to the spotlight. One of them had a Gremlin missile launcher and the other was manning a .50-caliber heavy machinegun.

"What was that?" The one on the spotlight asked in a heavy Russian accent as he began to turn in her direction.

Rishima darted past him as fast as she could accelerate and took his head off in one clean blow. The Gremlin operator was next but his head didn't come off as cleanly and her blade got stuck halfway through his spine. She released it without hesitation and jumped the fifteen feet separating her from the large man on the gun. Her legs wrapped around his waist in a flash and her arms around his neck even faster. With barely a grunt of effort, she snapped his neck and rode his thrashing body to the ground. She held him tightly for a few moments to make sure his convulsing body didn't make too much noise before it realized it was dead.

The lycan assassin breathed a sigh of relief when she realized that the spotlight was automated and mindlessly continued to track the night sky. After she quickly tossed the bodies into a shadowed corner of the snow-covered tower, something that must have happened during their ascent to drop altitude, Rishima removed the sight from her rifle to use as a makeshift telescope. Crouching low to avoid her silhouette showing, shorter and slighter of frame than the humans she had dispatched, she took careful stock of the exterior portions of the castle. There were two additional machinegun nests that she could see, each had their own smaller spotlights, with the bonus of a Gremlin launcher apiece. From her overwatch position, she could take them both out easily. Dale would have to be careful how he approached until Rishima could clear out both nests. Slotting her scope back onto her rifle, Rishima began to set up a sniper's perch on the north and south sides of the broken tower. There was still half of a wall to the north and plenty of space for her to drag one of the chairs over and clear a space just to the left of the tower wall where a convenient section of flat stone had been exposed. The south was a touch more problematic as there was a thigh-high wall and crumbling stonework protecting unwary travelers from tumbling to the ground. She found a gap in the low wall that was large enough to give her a fairly wide field of fire from a prone position. Setting the rifle up took another few minutes as she adjusted the cheekguard, butt-pad, and bi-pod. After fine-tuning her scope's settings, she felt she was ready. She had chosen the south position because the enemy's position was partially protected by a the last remaining wall of a stone structure. The shots would be more difficult than the north, which was protected by a hip height circle of sandbags, and needed more time to set up.

Rishima keyed up her shoulder mic and said, "Claw, in position."

" _Fang Two, in position."_

" _Fang One, in position."_

Rishima's heart began to beat strongly in her chest and a familiar tingle rippled down her spine as adrenaline began to trickle into her system. It was the precursor to a Shift but the full moon had been several days ago.

 _The blood..._

The lycan assassin had believed that Corvinus' blood had simply healed her of her wounds but it seemed the changes were far more invasive. There was no time to dwell on an event she couldn't change because, at that exact moment, an explosion blew a hole in the castle roof in front of the tower.

 _Crazy fuckers_ , Rishima thought with a smile as the first .50-caliber round left her rifle at supersonic speed.

* * *

Marcus stood with William as his brother pulled on a pair of urban camouflage cargo pants and a brown leather trench-coat in the temporary command center Brutus' human flunkies had prepared. It was essentially a square of long tables lined with radio and computer equipment. When his brother turned to him, now able to resume human form after being injected with their father's blood, it was as though he looked into a mirror. With the only difference being that William had silver hair that had turned shortly after being bitten, they were still obviously twins despite the centuries they had been divided; especially after William had immediately chopped off most of the length of his hair and shaved.

"This... Selene... you are sure she will come, brother?" William asked, his voice rough and Draconian from disuse.

"Oh, yes, she will come. Her insipid desire to save the humans drives her with far more zealotry than Victor was even capable of fathoming. She will be here but she will come alone. I killed her pet Hybrid, her leashed lycan and the vampire hunter abandoned her at the first opportunity. She will come here and we will end her."

"But she is a strong fighter?" William asked with a tinge of hope in his voice.

"Why are you and our brother so intent on finding 'worthy' foes? Is it not enough that you are the strongest?" Marcus asked in exasperation.

"But what is life if you don't have anything pushing you? That is why you were never the warrior that Draco is. Do you know where he is now? I would love to challenge him with this new power," William held up his hands and slowly curled them into fists. "I feel as though I could fight an entire army of Death Dealers."

Marcus scoffed and shook his head, "Our dearest brother had himself entombed in a secret location shortly after you... lost yourself. He said that he was tired of the world and that there were no more challenges to overcome. Once he used those horse-loving nomads to conquer more land than father took from the Persians, he abandoned them, founded a dusty little kingdom in some forgotten corner of the Near East, became bored, and then fell into the Long Sleep. Now that you know, can we forget our oafish brother?"

William clapped a hand on his twin's shoulder, "I forgot how touchy you are about Draco. It is good to see that sour look on your face again, brother."

Captain Ibanez approached from where he had been conferring with a radio operator and whispered to Brutus. The Captain, obviously familiar with vampiric hierarchical traditions, never tried to approach Marcus or William with his obsequious reports. Brutus approached with a slight bow of the head and did not meet their eyes directly as he spoke. William had been quick to correct the oversight after regaining human speech. Marcus had been so used to the slight to his honor, after enduring centuries of it, and had been pleased with how quickly his Acolytes fell into line.

"My Lords, Captain Ibanez has informed me that the Tower overwatch has not reported in as scheduled. He believes we may have been infiltrated. He recommends we prepare to evacuate and regroup at the facility I have selected for our use."

"Brother," William turned to him with eyes that were beginning to fill with cobalt blue, "Are there no true warriors left in this world that meet their enemies with bared steel and stalwart heart?"

Marcus grinned, "It is a rare thing in these times."

A sudden, vicious spat of gunfire echoed through the tunnels and the command center erupted into furious activity. The quartet of mercenaries at their stations began shouting orders and questions into their headsets. Then, as suddenly as it had erupted, the firefight died off only to be replaced by a human's goat-like screaming.

"They're here! Fucking Hell, they killed them all!" His voice was so loud and shrill that everyone stopped what they were doing to grab whatever weapon was closet to them. "Where is everyone?! Fuck me! This isn't the plan! There was only supposed to be one of them! God! Help me! Fucking help me! _They're right behind-_ "

William and Marcus both turned their heads to the ancient rope bridge that crossed the room two stories above the floor. One of the mercenaries had made it half a meter from a shadowed corridor before being yanked off his feet back into the darkness. Seconds later, his head came sailing through the air to land with disturbing accuracy at captain Ibanez' feet. The grizzled mercenary, to his credit, merely kicked the head aside.

"Why don't you show-" Marcus began but was cut off when a shadow glided forth from the corridor and strolled nonchalantly across the bridge.

The man's Nubian features were familiar to him and a quickly source of growing irritation; as were the ever present blackened spectacles he wore. He rested a long barreled rifle across one shoulder as he stopped in the middle of the bridge to look down at them as though they were insects to be stepped on.

"He is definitely of our brother's brood," William nodded slightly. "Yes, he will be a worthy fight."

"I'll give all you Familiars just _one_ chance," Blade called out in a booming voice. "Drop your shit, run and you'll live to see the sun rise. Don't... I'll enjoy that a lot more than you will."

Marcus resisted the urge to smile as one of the Acolytes that Brutus had posted near the ceiling of the vaulted chamber scurried into position on an outcropping of stone almost a dozen yards above Blade. The Acolyte hurled himself silently through the air on a direct course for the vampire hunter. A shadow flung it vertically from where it had been clinging to the ceiling above the Acolyte and a familiar feminine form put two boots into the Acolyte's back with bone crunching force. The impact knocked the evolved vampire off course and he smashed headfirst into the ground to their left with a horrendous cracking/crunching noise. Selene alighted beside the vampire hunter as softly as a feather and immediately pointed a pair of handguns at the immortal brothers. A human mercenary sprang from hiding out of an alcove on the far side of the bridge with an RPG launcher in hand. Blade smiled grimly, pointed behind him with a large sidearm in hand, and automatic fire perforated the mercenary's chest and face in seconds. The dying human slump backwards but not before pulling the trigger and sending the RPG into the ceiling.

That was precisely when all Hell broke loose to the sound of William's booming laughter.

* * *

Erika tried to stem her embarrassment as the _Express_ rapidly descended. When the explosion had occurred, she had shrieked. It had been quick and she hoped the pilots hadn't noticed. She sat in the now empty cabin with the machinegun between her legs and tried to quell the anxiety tying her stomach into knots.

"Express _, approach from the south. I've cleared AA from that vector. North will be clear in minus two."_

" _Copy that, Claw,"_ Dale replied in the same cool, professional tone that Rishima had.

 _They're talking about killing as though it were normal but, for them, it must be._

The _Express_ banked hard to the right and then tilted forward as they accelerated hard. Without warning, the muted thundering of the minigun could be heard despite the sound muffling qualities of her headphones. A missile was launched and quickly followed later by another. Metallic tinkling filled the hatch as the _Express_ suddenly banked.

" _Miss Erika, I would take it as a favor if you could stick that big gun you have there out of the right side door and strafe that beach while we take care of this last boat. Don't forget to tether in. Thanks."_

Erika began to hyperventilate as she shakily rose to her feet. She was going to die tonight. The fact had been an almost certainty when she had agreed to go on the mission. Her contribution was negligible because of her lack of combat training and she knew it. That didn't change the fact that Dale and Taz were depending on her.

 _Since when do I care about humans and their tiny lives?_

As she clipped herself to a tether, Erika decided none of that matter. As Rishima had whispered to her when the lycan was injured, living in the moment was one of the most difficult challenges for immortal and mortal alike. It was also one of the greatest spiritual talents one could nurture. Erika smiled as she remembered how shocking it had been that the foul-mouthed, amoral lycan had such a spiritual side to her. Her mouth settled into a firm line as she slid the door open and held the foregrip just as Rishima had shown her. It surprised her to see that the castle walls were barely thirty meters away and the water only five down. There were a half dozen figures firing at them with assault rifles from the rocky remnants of a pier.

With the casual ease that only an immortal could have, Rishima brought the padded butt-stock to her shoulder, sighted, and squeezed the trigger. As Rishima had instructed, her first shot was a short burst. The recoil seemed nonexistent and the muzzle wanted to creep upwards but it didn't take much for her to keep it where she wanted. Her second burst was longer and this time she watched as a soldier was thrown off the pier into the dark waters of the lake. Rishima hissed in frustration as the _Express_ rotated slightly and the minigun whirred to life almost directly beneath her. She put it from her mind and unleashed her own rain of bullets onto the pier. Bright streaks of light, what Rishima had said were called tracer rounds, flew through the air and helped her tell how off her aim was.

To Erika's great surprise, her aim was not bad at all.

" _I got them all!"_ She screamed into the radio in her ecstatic disbelief.

" _Don't get cocky, kid!"_ Erika could hear him scream to Taz over the wind as the helicopter began to ascend. "I always wanted to say that! How'd I sound!?"

"Like an asshole!" Taz shouted back.

"You're such a grump!"

" _Excellent work,_ Express _. North is clear."_

 _Maybe we can do this._

* * *

Selene jumped from the bridge immediately upon feeling the pressure wave from the detonation of the RPG. She landed on a long table with one foot on top of a shortwave radio and the other on the wood itself. Before she could begin firing, the clatter of an assault rifle sounded beside her. A quick look revealed Blade on the same table in a tight kneeling position as he fired his weapon with ruthless efficiency. Never one to be outdone, Selene added her own firepower to the onslaught as the rubble from the collapsed ceiling split the bridge in two.

First, she put rounds into the heads and thighs of three mercenaries to her left before turning her sights squarely on Marcus' furious countenance. Beside him stood a white-haired man that could only be his twin, William, and the father of lycans seemed darkly amused. She fired, emptying both magazines of her Match's in seconds, and the twins simply stood there. Entry wounds blossomed on their faces, throats, and chests but neither went down. Marcus hissed angrily while William actually threw his head back and laughed.

"Reloading!" Selene shouted, snapping out her magazines and putting new ones in with a deft thrust of her pistols behind her back. "Switch targets!"

Then the slides closed with a comforting snap and Selene laid down covering fire as Blade turned his sights on the two Elders. All too soon, his rifle went silent.

"Reloading," Blade growled, ejecting his magazine and slamming in another.

Selene glanced in the direction of the Elders just long enough to see William dead-lift a piece of column that must have weighed over four hundred kilograms without visible strain and hurl it at them.

"Move!" She barked and took her own advice by holstering her sidearms before diving forward above the heads of her enemies.

Normally, Selene's partners had a great deal more caution than she did so she fully expected Blade to have taken cover somewhere more sensible. As she flung a pair of exploding discs at the brothers, the Death Dealer saw a shadow flipping through the air beside her. Both of her targets dodged the discs but William didn't wait for Blade to land. Instead, the white-haired Elder crouched slightly before propelling himself into the air with blinding speed. He hit Blade in mid-flip and the two soared into the darkness above her. Selene landed, spun, and caught Blade's assault rifle as it came spinning towards her from the direction the grappling foes had disappeared. Marcus spun around, wings snapping open wide, with a snarling hiss seeping from his lips. Selene opened fire, a tight grouping in center mass, and Marcus staggered in place.

Then the grenade and pair of exploding discs just behind the Elder detonated. Selene covered her eyes and whirled around the cover provided by a small pile of rubble. The floor beneath her shook with the detonation and, before the pieces of debris had fully settled to the ground, Selene was spinning back with the assault rifle shouldered.

Marcus, wings shredded into useless masses of meat and sinew, was there in his fully transformed state. With a snarl of anger, he slapped the assault rifle away with such force that Selene had no choice but to release it unless she wanted to risk broken wrists. Twirling with the movement, Selene went to draw her pistols when Marcus grabbed her coat and used it to swing her into a convenient bank of computer equipment. She protected her head by cushioning it with her bicep but the edge of the cabinet caught her in the ribs. The impact definitely broke one and maybe fractured several more if the convulsive hacking cough that resulted in a thick clump of blood was any indication. The Death Dealer went to her knees as another coughing fit wracked her body as she desperately sought to draw in oxygen. Marcus took his time in approaching her as he gloated.

"Without your precious Death Dealers, there is a sad lack of fight in you, Selene. A pity."

Selene sprang up onto her knees and fired a Match into the corresponding kneecap of the insufferably smug Elder. He howled in pain as the joints were obliterated by bullets and collapsed to all fours. With an angry hiss of her own, Selene rose to her feet and into a flying knee to Marcus' head that lifted him completely off his feet. Selene landed and followed the Elder as he slid across the stone floor. When he finally came to a stop, she emptied both magazines into his face. To her frustration, her rounds didn't have the power to punch through his skull. Marcus began to gurgle laughter as she reloaded her weapons.

"You are still a fool, Selene," Marcus's eyes widened when Selene simply pointed her sidearms at his head again, "You didn't really think I would depend solely on these cretinous Familiars, did you?"

An unearthly howl she was intimately familiar with reverberated through the ruins as her heartbeat began to rise to what would be an average human's resting heart rate.

"Hey, Blood!"A deep, rage-filled growl twisted her head to the left.

A large bald man in the rags of the homeless had her in the sights of a Saiga-12 shotgun with a drum magazine. He grinned at her and then pulled the trigger a microsecond after Selene threw herself into a dive to the left. In the forest, against the human police, the vampire knew that she had been moving too fast for them to track. Her opponent this time was a lycan and using a weapon that could negate her speed advantage in close quarters.

Selene let loose a tiny grunt of pain as shot caught her in the left leg, abdomen, and chest. She covered her face as the impact to her chest sent her careening off course back into the center of the control center. Her attacker clomped noisily up to where she lay on her back, feeling her life blood ooze out of the wounds in her leg, and trying to catch her breath through the blood trying to fill her lungs.

"Aw, little Blood cunt looks like she's running a few pints short," the pig-eyed lycan looked down at her with a shit-eating grin as he stepped onto her thigh. She grit her teeth and glared up at him as he pointed the shotgun at her head. "Say goodnight, bitch."

A tremendous explosion rocked the castle seconds before the hole in the ceiling was widened by a familiar helicopter.

" _Fuck_!" The lycan screamed in panic and the bore of his shotgun wavered off target as he gaped at the sight of the smoking aircraft plummeting to the ground.

Selene, with the focus centuries of hunting had afforded her, kicked out with her uninjured leg. The block heel of her boot connected squarely between the lycan's legs and lifted him three meters straight up. His piggish squeal brought a tiny smile to her lips as she holstered her sidearms and snatched the dropped automatic shotgun with lightning-fast motions. As the helicopter somehow avoided crashing cockpit first, miraculously landing mostly on its skids, Selene held the trigger down on her pilfered weapon. At least half a dozen shells perforated the lycan's unarmored body as he plummeted to earth to land in a twitching, bloody heap of mangled flesh.

Selene slowly rose to her feet as the blades of the aircraft finally spun themselves down and a deathly silence overtook the ruins.

"Erika!" She shouted, concern for her friend overriding tactical awareness.

As pain shot through both shoulders, Selene screamed in a mixture of frustration and rage as she was hoisted into the air. She looked around through blurry eyes and saw that a pair of fully Shifted lycans had joined Marcus.

"And so it ends for you, Selene, you wretched sycophant."

"I'm sorry, Michael," Selene whispered before the blood loss from her wounds overcame her ability to stay conscious.

* * *

Eric's vision grayed around the edges as his head clipped the edge of an arched entryway after William kicked away from him in mid-air. He landed in a three-point stance and shook his head to try to clear the cobwebs. The faintest sound, boots scrapping through the rubble strewn floor, made him look up.

"Die, fucker!" The heavily bearded, filthy man in an equally unclean fur coat roared in a thick Russian accent as he pointed a Desert Eagle at Eric's head.

Eric exploded from his stance and chopped the offending hand at the wrist before the gun went off. Ignoring the thunderous report, Eric jabbed the man in the throat twice, twisted the arm holding the gun back towards his head, and gave the cocky gunman assistance in pulling the trigger. His face came apart in a shower of gore that Eric promptly ignored as another goon behind the first shouldered an assault rifle.

The hunter pushed the still twitching body of the brainless fool across the twelve feet separating him from this newest threat. With a snarl of contempt, the rifle-wielding muscle used his weapon to push the body over the low wall to the twenty-foot drop to the floor. Eric was on his knee in a shooting stance with his shotgun aimed at this one's bare chest. He squeezed the trigger and sent a slug through the man's chest. Without a sound, his enemy folded around the slug slightly before slumping to the ground.

There were three more lined up behind the first, all armed with SMGs, and they opened fire on Eric with shouts of rage. The blue glow of their eyes told him they were vamps as he rolled beneath a wall that had a convenient gap in the bottom. Racing forward with the speed of his vampiric heritage and the stealth he had earned through grueling training, Eric vaulted to a landing at the top of the high-ceiling corridor he found himself in. That let him emerge back into the corridor directly behind the trio of bloodsuckers.

The first received a slug to the head that introduced his gray matter to the outside world while the second and third had to make do with slugs to the torso. Once those two were down and writhing in pain, Eric finished them with point-blank headshots. Wasting little time, the hunter reloaded his shotgun. As the last slug was being slid into the receiver, heavy breathing that felt like it was coming from just over his shoulder, caused Eric to turn his head just enough to see what looked like the muzzle of the biggest dog in the world just behind his right shoulder.

Eric let his legs fall out from under him as he twisted beneath the swing of a wickedly clawed hand. He managed to get off one shot, just under the ribcage, and the Shifted lycan barely took notice. The lycan was on him a moment later and Eric barely got his shotgun between its jaws as it tried to take a bite out of his face. He dropped one hand from the shotgun, instead using his forearm to brace the weapon, and pulled one of his hold-out silver stakes from his coat. When he plunged the stake deep into the hole in the lycan's side, his Shifted foe raised their head to howl their pain. In that moment, Eric plunged another stake through the werewolf's soft palette and into its brain. Within seconds, Eric found himself with a naked woman, filthy as the first two he had ended, with his stakes sticking out of her.

Before he could even take a breath to center himself, someone grabbed him by the collar of his coat and tossed him down the entirety of the walkway. When he finally came to a bruising halt against the far wall, Eric rose to his feet slowly and rolled his neck as he watched William come sauntering forward flanked by a pair of Shifted lycans.

"I was right about you, Blade. You are a worthy foe. You two, assist my brother. I will test his mettle alone."

Eric grinned and dropped the pins to the pair of grenades he had dropped on his way down the hall.

"Wha-?"

Whatever else the Elder lycan was going to say was lost as the explosives detonated. Eric covered his eyes from the flash and, when he looked back, he was staring into the face of a monster. William had Shifted and it was not what he had been told to expect. Instead of a larger-than-normal werewolf, William resembled a furrier version of a Shifted Michael with the notable difference of being nearly eight feet tall.

"I'm going to rend you, little Daywalker!" The Elder Hybrid roared and Eric answered him with a full magazine from his MAC. When he ran dry, William snarled as bloody spittle slid from his mouth. "Is that all?!"

With blinding speed, the Elder snatched Eric up by palming his skull with one massive hand. The pressure was incredible and the hunter could not help but to instinctively raise his hands to try to pry the grip loose. William's muscles might as well have been steel cable for all the good Eric's attempts did.

"A pity," William growled and the pressure on his skull increased.

Before darkness took him, the world became fire.

* * *

Rishima smiled as she heard the exhilaration in Erika's voice over her success with the machinegun. She had a feeling that, after they were done in this ruin, Erika would be feeling quite frisky. If they could talk Blade into feeding off of the blonde vampire, Rishima was sure they could get him to join them. The mere thought of it was almost enough to distract her from a stray flash of reflected light on the lake. She oriented her rifle just enough to focus the scope on the kind of inflatable boats Special Forces used for amphibious landings. A long figure stood up in the boat with a distressingly familiar shape in his hands. Before the lycan could shout a warning over the radio, the bastard fired.

To her joy, the helicopter nimbly spun out of the way of the RPG. That feeling turned to ashes in her mouth as six more RPGs zipped through the air. At least one found a home in the helicopter's side and then the dreadfully fragile aircraft was spinning through the air. As she had been trained, Rishima put all of that from her mind and calmly put a .50-caliber round through the chest of the first person to fire.

As the helicopter nose-dived into the hole into the interior of the castle, Rishima pulled the trigger again and again as tears silently rolled down her cheeks. Finally, she ran out of rounds readily in reach and grabbed her ammo box. A boot came out of nowhere to pin her wrist to the ground as she was dragging the ammo box over. She twisted her head just in time to catch another boot to the jaw. Her vision dimmed a bit but she retained consciousness.

"Oh, I was hoping I would be the one to find you, Rishima."

The Indian lycan was unceremoniously rolled over and pulled up to her knees by a pair of burly blonde men with lice-filled beards. They stretched her arms out wide to the sides as they dragged her before their leader. He was a short man with dusky brown skin, greasy black hair and a thick beard.

"Farrohk, sorry to see you survived the fight in the Den. Then again, they always say that roaches are the best survivors." Farrohk, quick to anger but slow to the punch, reared back and slapped her hard in the mouth. Her inner cheek split on her teeth and she grinned through the pain. "And you still hit like a woman. No, I'm a woman, and I hit _much_ harder than that. You hit like a little boy whose balls haven't dropped yet."

This time, Farrohk kicked her in the stomach and that got a low groan to emerge from her. Her eyes widened with surprise instead of pain because the pre-Shift tremors were beginning to overtake her.

"I'm tired of your smart mouth, Rishima. I've had to put up with it for the last thirty years. That's the problem with you fucking Indians. Always thinking you're better than we are. I'll send you to your infidel god, you heathen whore, and you can suck one of his thousand cocks in Hell."

Rage boiled in her veins at his tone, "I fought to stop the annexation of more provinces by the Brits long before your mother pushed you into the world, you Paki fuck! I helped end British India and that's how you to talk to me?!"

The blonde on the left punched her in the side of the head and her vision flashed white. Her jaw partially Shifting as her teeth elongated and a low moan escaped her that brought a sadistic to Farrohk's face.

"I'm going to send you to Hell with your own gun, bitch. Sounds fitting, does it not?" Farrohk gloated before making the fatal mistake of reaching past Rishima to grab the grip of her Python.

Rishima viciously bit Farrohk on the bicep, all the way to the bone, and the Pakistani lycan squealed in blinding agony. Strength surged through Rishima as she rose to her feet, released Farrohk, and brought the two grunts holding her arms together with bone crunching force in front of her. They relaxed their grips enough so that she could worm her arms free and draw her 1911. A trio of rounds into their right knees put them on the ground and then she drew her Python for the coup-de-grace to their skulls. Farrohk hadn't even tried to draw his gun and simply leaped over the side of the tower. Rishima took a single step to follow him when a roar from the castle interior stopped her cold. It was a roar that she would never forget as long as she lived.

"Brother."

Rishima didn't wasted time looking for her rifle and the box of ammo. Instead, she jumped from the tower and landed heavily just at the edge of the hole into the ruins interior. She could see the wreck of the helicopter and, just in front of that, the unmistakable sheen of Selene's coat. The Death Dealer was lying in a heap to the side as Michael battled Marcus and a trio of lycans. One seemed badly injured but was still providing a distraction for his better armed brothers.

A scream of defiance and rage brought her attention to a walkway four meters below her. Her heart, already beating at the frenetic pace that was a precursor to a Shift, nearly seized when she recognized Blade by his longcoat as he was hoisted into the air by a figure of tremendous stature. It looked like the strange white-furred lycan was half-Shifted and she could only assume that Marcus had Turned his brother in a Hybrid. Blade's cry cut off and he went limp in the Elder's grasp.

 _Who do I help?_ Rishima thought in despair. _Who?_

The answer came from a most unexpected source.

* * *

Erika regained consciousness with a start and moaned loudly at the pain in her back.

 _What happened?_

The last thing she remembered was Taz screaming something about incoming and then Dale telling her to hold onto something. Then there had been spinning and more screaming followed by a tremendous crunch of metal. She looked around the cabin and found she could barely see through the oily smoke. A cry of pain snapped her attention to the cockpit and she went to the door. Unfortunately, the door that could slide shut to seal off the cabin had been warped by the crash. It had come off the rails and was lying twisted in the doorway. She looked beneath it and could see where Dale was slumped over his controls while Taz was frantically tugging at her safety harness.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck," the dark-skinned woman muttered to herself repeatedly.

"Hey, Taz," Erika called out and the woman froze at the sound of her voice. "I'm going to get you out of there. Just give me a second."

"You're gonna fuckin' eat me!" Taz screamed and resumed her frantic activity.

Erika rolled her eyes but then smelled the blood streaming from a wound on Taz' head.

 _She must be out of her head._

Erika grabbed the bottom/side of the door and hauled upward with all her strength. Pain rippled through her body as she lifted, further warping the entryway, but she finally made enough room to slide beneath. She snapped the broken restraints effortlessly and then slammed the SMG Rishima had given her on the ship into Taz' chest.

"Can you walk?" Erika barked close enough to the human's face that their noses almost touched.

"I think so."

"Then go. I'll get Dale."

"Yes, ma'am.

Erika pulled Dale free from his harness and dragged him through the wrecked helicopter. It looked like the helicopter had mostly landed on the skids so the floor was only slightly tilted. That afforded her the perfect view of Selene being hoisted into the air by Marcus' wing pinions. Selene looked right at the downed helicopter and her mouth moved in a whisper. In a flash of movement, a hulking figure was standing in front of the door. His dark blue skin and savage musculature had once been a source of sheer terror but now the sight swelled her heart with courage.

"Michael!" She exclaimed and the Hybrid turned to her with a bared fangs. "Save her!"

With a bestial howl that sent shivers through her soul, Michael turned and tore through the side of the helicopter as though it were made of tinfoil. Erika dragged Dale out of the other side and to a shadowed alcove where Taz had taken cover. After she gently lay him beside his co-pilot, Erika passed her three spare magazines to the pilot.

"I'll be back shortly," Erika said, doing her best to give Taz a reassuring smile.

The woman's dour face, which looked as though it never smiled, back impassively, "Where are you going?"

"To say hello."

Erika dashed back into the helicopter's interior and picked up her machinegun. Doing her best to ignore the roaring and crashes coming from the clearing, she found another box of ammunition and fumbled her way through replacing her empty one. Finally, she thought she had it right, pulled the bolt back and grunted in satisfaction as it stayed open.

When the blonde vampire emerged from the helicopter, she found that she was just in time. Michael was being held down by the surviving pair of wolves, the third's chest a bloody ruin as it lay lifeless, while Selene was a far too still heap of flesh just to Erika's right. Marcus was strutting over to Michael as though he had all the time in the world.

"Elder!" Erika barked as she felt her muscles spasm sharply for a moment and the faint ache she had been feeling since drinking the Elder's blood faded. He turned to her with a look of surprise and she grinned widely. "Hi!"

Shouldering the machinegun, hand gripping the foregrip just so, Erika slowly walked forward as she unloaded on full auto at the Elder. He roared and turned to charge her but, in spite of all his vast strength, even he could not stand up to the kinetic energy of dozens of machinegun rounds. Erika found herself hissing in dark pleasure as the Elder folded in half as she tried her hardest to hold her sights center mass. Movement out of the corner of her eye caused her to turn her head slightly to witness one of the lycans charging at her on all fours. Her heart began to beat faster than it ever had as the beast leaped for her, claws outstretched, and she felt her body warm. Time also seemed to slow as her enemy sailed through the air. She found it ridiculously easy to spin around the lycan and thrust the heel of her boot into its ribcage as it flew past her. Ribs shattered under the force of that single blow and it began to tumble through the air wildly after after its momentum was redirected by her kick. For a parting gift, Erika let it have the remaining rounds in her magazine.

Just as suddenly as it had arrived, all strength fled from Erika's body. She dropped to her knees and the machinegun fell to the cold ground as smoke rose from its overheated barrel. Her breath steamed into the chill night air as she gulped big breaths of air. Labored steps coming towards her gave Erika the strength to raise her head to watch as Marcus limped his way to her. His left leg was a mass of shredded flesh and bone while his left wing had been reduced to a stub flicking uselessly against his back. Pain, almost too alien to comprehend on his Shifted face, twisted his features into something truly demonic.

"Die, you annoying wretch!" Marcus screeched in manic fury as he raised his right arm back. Erika closed her eyes so she didn't have to watch death finally come to claim her. "How?!"

The question, shouted in a voice full of shock and disbelief, sprang her eyes open as if it was a prybar. Somehow, Selene had caught the Elder's wrist in her hand as he tried to spear Erika through the head with his claws. The barrel of a familiar Colt Python was thrust under the Elder's chin and a fountain of viscera spewed from the top of his head. Before Marcus could slump to the ground, a claw burst through his abdomen. Selene turned to face Erika as Michael raised the Elder Hybrid above his head, thrust his opposite hand into the body and ripped Marcus in half with a victorious roar. Erika gasped as Selene's eyes briefly flared to a silver-blue color as they made eye contact.

 _Where are Blade and Rishima?_

* * *

Rishima landed behind the Elder with her 1911 in one hand and the Python in the other after watching Erika emerge from the crashed helicopter. She fired half a magazine into the right knee of William in an attempt to repeat her earlier method of execution. William had apparently not gotten the memo and, instead of dropping to one knee, released Blade and somehow crossed the space between them to backhand Rishima off her feet. The Python flew from her hands but she stabilized the semi-auto pistol with both hands as she slid along the floor on her back. As the Elder limped closer, she unloaded a full magazine into his chest and head. She had been hoping for a lucky shot into his eye but it was not to be.

William roared and spat out a bullet as his mouth rapidly healed, "I can smell you from here, daughter! Why do you fight with weapons designed for the weak!? We are wolves! Fight as we were meant to! With fang and claw! Flesh and bone!"

Rishima tossed her pistol to the side, stood and tore her tac-vest in half with a scream of Shift-pain. To her surprise, it happened far more quickly than normal and she was entirely aware of her surroundings when it was over.

 _Lucian said this would happen for me one day but never so quickly_ , she had time to think in wonder before instinct send her lunging toward the Elder.

Fighting in Shifted form had always been a blur of instinct and savage fury, the few times she could remember having to engage in combat during a full moon. Now, every action was crystal clear and it became obvious she was outclassed from the start. Every swipe with her claws was either dodged or blocked with contemptuous ease. When she lunged to snap her jaws perilously close to his face, William simply flowed around it. Rishima was making him back up but he didn't seem particularly concerned with that fact. After several long seconds, William seemed to tire of his game and landed a straight right of god-like power to her upper chest. A horrible sensation of shattering consumed Rishima's being as the Shifted lycan was propelled off her feet. Blood flowed freely from her muzzle as she rose unsteadily to all fours.

"This has been entertaining but I think our time is nearly over, daughter."

"Then be a good boy and play dead."

In mid-stride, William stopped with a peculiar look on his face before his eyes rolled up into his skull as though they he was trying to look at where Blade's sword had neatly pierced his skull just above the bridge of his nose. The Elder's head lolled back to expose his throat and Rishima had never been one to waste an opportunity. She lunged and bit down as hard as she could. The blood rushing down her throat drove her to even greater savagery as she bore the Elder to the ground. With one hand on the crown of his head and the other on his chest, Rishima worried William's spinal column until her teeth finally met. With a triumphant howl, she raised her muzzle, heaved with the hand on top of William's head and separated it from his body.

Blade stood a couple meters away, staring at his broken shades, and raised his eyes to hers. She nearly dropped William's head as the glowing liquid gold of that stare seemed to force a painless Shift back to her human form. There was a moment where he simply took in her naked, blood-splattered body with an appreciative glance before he sagged noticeably. She put his arm across her shoulders and helped support his weight as Erika's voice called their names from the courtyard below.

"Stop all that screeching, damn you!" She called back down to her lover. "You'll wake all the ghosts in this place!"

"Why are you naked? We don't have time for your naughtiness! Where's William? We already took care of his brother!" Rishima threw William's head down to them and smirked at Erika's indignant shriek. "You got his blood on me!"

"You're already covered in blood! It's pretty sexy!"

"Come down-"

The rest of her sentence was drowned in a scream of surprise and terror when a solid stream of sunlight managed to make its way to the exact spot where Michael was holding Selene while Erika screamed at her. Rishima was about to shout for them to move when Erika looked at her hand in wonder. Selene and Michael kissed once before the vampire lost consciousness in his arms.

"It doesn't burn!" Erika shrieked and began spinning in the sunlight like a schoolgirl after kissing a long time crush.

Instead of ruining the vampire's jubilant celebration, Rishima decided to needle the vampire hunter, "And Blade, for future reference, it's a little racist to tell a lycan to 'play dead'."

Rishima turned her head, expecting some sort of gruff reply, only to discover that the hunter had lost consciousness just as Selene had. She was worried for a moment before she remembered how quickly he had said Draconis vampires healed. Then she smiled as she thought of a way to further her plans to get the encounter she wanted to end the day with.

"Alright, who do I have to fuck to get off this island!?"


	9. Epilogue

For the first time in more years than he cared to think about, Eric's sleep was deep and dreamless. He floated in a soothing, cool darkness for an eternity and knew peace. He was tempted to stay in that place forever but knew that Whistler was depending on him. There were also images, voices and sensations that would briefly flash through the dark. For some reason, two of the faces that flashed before him warmed him in a way that he associated with post-feeding arousal.

"Blade," the husky voice purred. "You've been asleep for long enough. Time to wake up."

Soft light began to intrude upon his cocoon with glacial slowness; that was accompanied by the sensation of warmth and wetness.

 _Am I in a bath?_

"Blade," this voice was lighter, English accented, and even more seductive than the first. "We need you."

The first pair of lips began to lightly kiss the left side of his neck and was joined seconds later by light nips on the right side. His eyes snapped open to stare at a white ceiling. He shifted his eyes without moving, just in case he had been captured and this was some elaborate ruse, and raised an eyebrow as Rishima's grinning face suddenly filled his vision.

"Hi," she greeted him, her solid blue-black eyes shining in the golden light emanating from crystalline fixtures in the corners of what he assumed was Erika's private bathroom.

"Wha-?" His question was cut off when the beautiful Indian woman pressed her lips to his with a soft growl.

His right arm instinctively snaked around her waist and he quickly realized she was naked when his right hand settled on her tight ass. He squeezed the rock-hard flesh as he found himself kissing her back with a growl of his own. Rishima disengaged and gently turned his head to his left to find Erika's seductive smile. Her eyes glowed in the light but, instead of filling him with wary expectation, it filled him with sensual anticipation.

"Hello," Erika didn't even wait for him to try to speak and caught his bottom lip between her teeth.

Before he knew what was happening, she had slipped her tongue into his mouth. Eric found himself trying to keep up with the frenzied pace that the vampire was setting. His left hand found her ass, just as it had Rishima's, and he gave her more pliable flesh a bruising squeeze. When she finally stopped, Erika lay her head on his chest and panted lightly. Rishima mirrored the blonde and planted a soft kiss on her lips. Eric's eyes narrowed as the haze of lust dissipated enough for him to form words.

"So... does anyone wanna fill me in on what the fuck happened?" Erika giggled and lowered her hand to grip his throbbing erection beneath the water. For a moment, Eric thought to grab her wrist with crushing force but the urge passed quickly. That did not deter him from his inquiry. "Well?"

Rishima sighed, circled the large, in-ground bathtub so that she could lean back opposite him. "The Cleaners sent a crew to contain the scene. You and Selene lost consciousness from your wounds. Once we knew you weren't in danger, we caught a ride back to Erika's."

"Did I really see you stand in daylight?" Eric asked the woman, trying to avoid moaning as she increased the force and speed of her stroking.

"Yes. Selene and me. I guess you're not the only daywalker now." Erika smiled with feminine smugness. "Does that concern you?"

Surprisingly, the knowledge that the two vampires had apparently been cured of their weakness, did not concern Eric in the slightest. He shook his head in the negative before turning back to Rishima.

"What are your plans now?"

Rishima sighed again and idly waved her hands through the steaming water. "We've not really discussed it. Selene woke a couple of hours ago but her and Michael have been getting... reacquainted. Commander Samuel told us that he had to call the head of the corporation that funds their activities, a woman named Carmen Vega, but she won't be here for another day or so. Mostly, we've decided to relax and enjoy the fact that we lived."

"Doesn't that sound nice, Blade?" Erika asked, her voice reduced to a husky whisper, before she went back to sucking on his neck.

Eric grunted, "I have to find Whistler."

Rishima waded back over to him and placed a hand on his chest as she kissed him under the chin. "A few more hours of relaxation will make little difference, I think. You came _so_ close to dying, Blade. Is there truly anything wrong with celebrating life with us?"

"Yes, join us, Blade. Please?" Erika asked in a plaintive whisper even as she fondled him with superlative skill.

"Eric."

Rishima's eyes widened as she went still, "What?"

"My name-" He growled as he reached forward to pull her to him so that her pert B-cup breasts were flush against his chest. "-is Eric."

Before Rishima could form a response, Eric kissed her hungrily as he released all the emotions he had been bottling up over the last few days. She moaned into his mouth as she returned the favor and Erika hissed in pleasure as he squeezed the blonde's ass while pressing her closer. Rishima disengaged not long after that and stood over him. The werewolf looked down with a naughty grin before placing one foot over his left shoulder and running a Shifted fingernail down her inner thigh. Eric felt his fangs elongate as a thin line of blood ran down her creamy brown leg.

"Drink. It'll get your... strength up, Eric."

He hesitated, the strict rules he had lived by for so long were a solid wall in his mind, but then Erika bit him on the nipple lightly. "She's offering it to you because she wants to... Eric."

The sound of his name on the blonde's tongue overcame what little resistance he had remaining to him. Eric sank his fangs into the vein with a lusty moan. The taste of her blood, cinnamon donuts and hot chocolate, filled his mouth as he drank. Heat bloomed in his stomach and a rush of energy filled him. To his astonishment, The Thirst did not rear its ugly head and demand that he drain every last drop of blood from her. Rishima moaned above him and gripped his hair tightly as her legs trembled. Something enveloped his dick beneath the water and he removed his mouth from Rishima's thigh to see Erika's blonde locks floating on the surface of the water as she pleasured him.

When Eric looked back to Rishima, he discovered that the werewolf had spread herself open and was fingering an engorged clitoris. It was easy to find as her vulva was slightly darker than her thighs and her clit a bright pink nub at the very top. He gently moved her fingers to the side and captured the beckoning organ with his mouth.

"Yes!" Rishima shrieked and clenched his hair in two fists as she frantically began to thrust her hips. "Suck me, Eric! It feels so fucking good!"

That was all the encouragement needed and, with his mouth on her clit alone, the Indian warrior was groaning her orgasm less than five minutes later. To Eric's amazement, Erika had not come up for air in all that time. As though sensing that Rishima had finished, Erika increased her speed and sucked as though her life depended on it. It became almost painful and then the release was exquisite. Eric practically roared into Rishima's thigh as his body seized while Erika sucked every last spurt from him.

When the vampiress emerged from the water, her eyes glowed with delight as she looked up at him. Then, without warning, Rishima grabbed a handful of Erika's hair and pushed her into the side of the tub. The dark-haired lycan spun her so that Erika's hips were flush against the tub.

"Spread your legs," Rishima commanded and Erika complied without a sound. Rishima reached between Erika's legs from beneath and spread her bright pink slit with one hand. She began to slowly fondle Erika's clit before sliding her middle finger all the way inside. Erika hissed but remained completely still. "She's ready for you, Eric. Come here."

In a post-orgasm daze, Eric complied and discovered that his cock was still rock hard. Rishima guided him inside the tight, cool flesh of Erika and, having never fucked a vampire before, was surprised. He must have made a face because Rishima giggled.

"She's hotter than most vamps now but still several degrees cooler than humans. She'll warm up. Just keep fucking her."

"Yes, please, fuck me," Erika moaned in agreement and squeezed him with her pussy hard enough to make him groan.

Eric looked down to see that Erika had begun to slowly work herself on his dick. Her luscious ass bounced so distractedly that he missed Rishima exiting the tub until he heard her moan Erika's name. He looked up to discover that the lycan had seated herself in front of her vampire lover with spread legs. Erika had wasted little time in reopening the healed bite that Eric had drank from. Unlike Eric, the blonde seductress had enough presence of mind to rub her clit with her thumb as she fed.

The hunter reduced his strokes to short, slow ones as to not upset Erika's work and became enraptured by the look of ecstasy on Rishima's face. When her face tightened and her second orgasm howled from her, Eric subconsciously increased his pace.

"Fuck her hard! She needs it!" Rishima encouraged him with a fierce look full of lust.

Eric squeezed Erika's hips hard enough to bruise and pounded the blonde relentlessly. She let out a long hiss that evolved into a series of sharp yelps as he took her pussy for his own.

"Yes, that's it! Make her cum all over you! Make her scream into me!"

Eric looked up and saw that Erika had buried her head into Rishima's sex. It looked like she was doing her best to pleasure the lycan but Eric was not being gentle now. Before he knew it, Erika _was_ shrieking into Rishima's cunt. Rishima licking her lips and winking at him proved too much for his stamina and Blade ejaculated with a series of angry-sounding grunts.

"Fuck, Ri," Eric moaned as he slipped from Erika and watched as the vampiress slumped almost lifeless on the tile. "Did we break E?"

"E?" Rishima grinned, "I like it." Rishima slid back into the water and kissed him deeply before turning back to Erika's splayed legs. Sliding three fingers into her pussy while furiously rubbing her clit seemed to jumpstart the blonde. "See? You just have to give her a jolt and she's back."

"Fuck off, Ri," Erika moaned and stood up straight as Rishima removed her fingers. "Let's take this to the bedroom."

"My legs are weak. I think I need a lift!" Rishima wasted no time in jumping into Eric's arms and wrapping her legs low on his hips. His erection, steadfastly refusing to fade, made it child's play for her to lower her sex onto him. In sharp contrast to Erika, Rishima was extremely hot inside but, more importantly, she was just as wet and tight. "Oops! Well, as long as you're in there..."

Eric growled and bit Rishima on the chin as he rose to his full height. A weight on his back made him stumble a bit before another pair of legs wrapped around his waist a little higher up.

"Don't forget me, Eric," Erika's whisper nearly made him blow a load into Rishima but he held out through sheer force of will even after she began to suck on his neck.

Carrying them both into the bedroom, even with Rishima weighing two hundred plus pounds, was managed without strain. When he settled the lycan onto her back, still sheathed inside her, Erika's weight abruptly left his back. He began to fuck Rishima slowly as he pinched both her nipples. She growled at him with bared teeth before her eyes rolled slowly as the pleasure overrode her receptors. Drumbeats from the hidden speaker system suddenly filled the room and he found himself pumping away to the beat without thought.

" _Yours is the only version of my desertion that I could ever subscribe to..."_

Eric had no idea what the song was called or who sung it but he had to admit that it set a good rhythm. Erika's weight resettled on his back as he pumped away at the lithe lycan beneath him. She nipped lightly as his ear before she began to whisper.

"Fuck her, Eric. Fuck her good and hard. Like an animal. She needs it even more than I did. Use her. Like a whore."

"Yes!" Rishima shouted, "Use my pussy! Treat me like your little whore!"

When he had first met the cheerful, if psychotically competent assassin, Eric would have never believed she would be capable of speaking as she was now. That didn't stop him from putting one hand around her neck and squeezing lightly as his other raised her leg to hook over his right shoulder. The songs switched but this one also had a good beat to fuck to. Eric groaned when Erika bent his head slightly and sank her fangs into his carotid.

" _I wish I could eat the salt off of your faded lips..."_

Erika didn't drink long before removing herself from his back and quickly moving to straddle Rishima's face. The blonde didn't even have to ask as Rishima possessively grasped her hips and lowered her already thoroughly ravished cunt so that the lycan could add to the damage. Erika's eyes shifted to a silver-blue color as Eric watched and he became so engrossed in the beauty of the vampire that he eased off the power of his thrusts. Soon, Erika was losing herself again from the expert ministrations of Rishima's mouth and hissing her orgasm for almost a full minute. When she was done, Eric found himself the victim of a fierce stare.

"Shouldn't you be making her cum?"

Eric grunted as a new song came on and pumped away as Rishima undulated beneath him.

" _I am thinking it's a sign...that the freckles in our eyes..."_

Erika slid off of Rishima to lay beside the delicious dark-haired beauty and whisper in her ear as Eric had his way with her. When he hooked the other leg over his shoulder and raised her hips even higher off the bed, her grunting increased in volume and intensity. Soon, her teeth clenched and her legs tried to straighten against him just before she opened her mouth to unleash a nearly lupine howl as her orgasm thundered through her. Eric was not long behind her and his roar came close to eclipsing hers.

Finally, his erection was spent and all the energy drained from him as quickly as it had appeared after drinking from Rishima. Erika maneuvered them, somehow still able to function while he and Rishima were nearly insensate, until Eric was sandwiched between the two women as they used his chest for pillows.

" _Nights in white satin, never reaching the end..."_

"At least I know this song," Eric commented as lethargy began to force his eyes closed.

"How do you feel, Eric?" Rishima asked in a whisper as Erika gently kissed him.

"Content."

"Good," Eric could almost feel the smile on Erika's face. "Then sleep."

And he did.

* * *

Eric was almost out of the door when Erika's voice stopped him in his tracks. His clothes, including his coat, had been hung in Erika's closet. He assumed he would find his Charger and weapons so there had been little need to wake the two women. Plus, he had always found goodbyes awkward anyway.

"Are you leaving so soon?" She asked, letting the sheet slide down to bare her breasts. Eric knew that she didn't do things like that consciously but he still found it hard to keep his eyes locked on hers as he nodded. "You can't stay for another day?"

Rishima's hand squeezed the blonde's arm lightly as she rose to a sitting position. The lycan assassin hugged her lover with one arm as she kissed her on the cheek.

"He has to go, Erika. We've kept him long enough."

Erika's eyes filled with tears and her bottom lip began to tremble but she kept her composure. "Okay. Can we come with you?"

Rishima smiled slightly, "I wouldn't mind that either, you know."

Eric shook his head slightly, "They'll need you. I think you can do the most good here. Get a handle on this war, stop the murder of innocents on _both_ sides of the line." Eric opened the door to leave but then paused. "Either way, I _will_ come for you later."

Closing the door to the sound of their giggles was far harder than he let on. He discovered that the master bedroom was on a separate sound system because some light orchestral piece was playing as he made his way to the living room.

"Blade."

Eric turned and snatched the small black book from the air reflexively as he caught sight of Selene in a long white silk robe. She was sitting at the big table with a half-full wine glass in front of an open laptop that was in turn surrounded by thick folders.

"And this is?" Eric asked her without taking his eyes from the Death Dealer.

"Reliable suppliers, informants, numbers and addresses you can contact. If you ever find yourself in need of any assistance, all you need to do is call. We owe you that much." Eric nodded and she continued. "We restocked your vehicle with weapons and ammunition. You'll find a pair of bags with a million in Czech crowns each. That should be enough to get your operation started. Thank you for all your help, Blade."

Eric resisted the urge to smile as he replied, "It was my pleasure."

Selene nodded and went back to her work. Eric quickly shoved the book into an inner pocket of his coat and left the apartment. He found his Charger in Erika's parking spot, got inside, and chuckled quietly at the freshly cleaned upholstery. A map with a clearly marked route to Prague had been left on the passenger seat and, after several minutes of study, Eric was ready to roll. As he pulled out onto the street, he turned on his CD player and growled in mock anger as the strains of _Happy Together_ played.

"Women," Eric grunted but didn't stop the song as he drove.

It was a catchy tune when all was said and done.

* * *

Songs in order of play:

Interpol- PDA

Interpol- Obstacle 1

The Postal Service- Such Great Heights

The Turtles- Happy Together


End file.
